


Chains Adventurous - Shadow Savers

by nvzblgrrl



Series: Chains Adventurous [3]
Category: Jumpchain, Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pokemon Colosseum, ポケモンＸＤ 闇の旋風ダーク・ルギア | Pokémon XD Yami no Kaze Dark Lugia | Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness
Genre: Gen, Rewrite, Self-Insert, Strong Language, and yes i know the title is cheesy, everything i do seems to be a rewrite these days, i'm not even good at naming my pets but dammit i'm trying
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2018-10-29 22:04:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 53,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10863000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nvzblgrrl/pseuds/nvzblgrrl
Summary: Orre's the region everyone likes to forget about, unless they didn't know about it in the first place. Of course, it's rather important to start remembering when you get dumped there right as the local Team starts making their bid for world-domination. Pokemon Colosseum and Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness focused. Self-Insert. Warnings for violence and language.





	1. Awakening

The moment my alarm clock began to ring – a generous description, considering that the noise I programmed it with was a mix of radio garble, static, and high pitch beeping that came together to punch my adrenaline button right in the face –, my hand was out to silence it.

I didn't want to be awake. My bed was comfortable, the room was warm, and my motivation was low, considering that yesterday…

Yesterday.

The gears of my brain slowly sped up from their initial clunky crawl as I kept reaching for what it was about yesterday that I – oh, yeah.

Yesterday, I'd died. Not in the hyperbolic sense of being dead on my feet or absolutely done with the world, but in the most literal, most serious sense of 'dead' there was. Kind of hard to be anything else after a thirty pound icicle turns your brainpan into chunky salsa.

Yet here I was, not dead and – if the ability to have a headache was any indication – not headless.

The gears did a little more turning before pulling up another piece of the story.

Right, after the whole dying horribly thing – really, what was I expecting after the series of unfortunate events called 'my life'–, there was a creepy cosmic being with a taste for leonine contracts and making tiny mortals suffer for its entertainment. And, moron that I am, I took its deal.

I slammed my face into my pillow a few times as if to punish what brain cells I had left. Stupid, stupid, stupid. And now I had two sets of memories trying to figure out which ones were going to play the part of alpha dog, a process that was currently doing nothing more than giving me a headache and no immediate answers as to where I was – home? Not home? – or what I was supposed to be doing outside of obeying the orders of the alarm clock to rise and fucking shine.

Then, like divine intervention, something small and winged flew over me to land on the headboard of my bed and distract me from the pain of thinking.

"Whrr?"

What – Leven.

A fresh set of memories clicked into place. My first and so far only Pokémon. I'd started bothering my mom about getting me a starter when I was eight, two years before I'd legally – and wow, did it say something that the age limit was one of the few laws enforced in Orre – be able to have one that wasn't under co-ownership with an adult. The intent had been to get a Litten but some mix-up in the order forms had seen me get the Flying/Grass-type Rowlet. After that, I'd simply been too excited to have a Pokémon partner of my own to pay any mind to the mistake.

Probably better off that way. Litten's hairballs were supposed to be flammable which, considering my tendency towards clutter and leaving dirty clothes where I threw them, would probably have meant multiple unintentional incendiary incidents within the first year alone.

I reached over to scratch Leven's head, the Owl Pokémon chuffing and whirring with pleasure as I found the good spots. As I let my arm fall back under the command of gravity, my fingers brushed the smooth leaves of the Rowlet's 'bowtie' and my mouth twisted up in a smile.

And there was one of the two reasons why I'd named my starter after the Eleventh Doctor. The other was the cheap pun of associating an owl with Doctor Who. At least some things weren't entirely different, even if inclusion of Pokémon changed a good number of the plots.

It was hard to think that something so cute had the potential to evolve into a feathered Grass/Ghost Robin Hood… after the obligate dorky middle phase. Of course, it wasn't like I couldn't say humans were that different in that regard, what with that mess known as 'puberty' thrown into the mix.

And of course, I'd be thrown back into that shark pit again.

"Why am I even awake?" I asked Leven.

"Finally decided to join the living?" someone asked from the door.

The hairs on the back of my neck rose. I didn't know that voice.

How _couldn't_ I know that voice?

Why didn't I hear my door opening?

It was open already. It's almost always open.

I never slept with my door open. It wasn't _safe_.

Why – I closed off my internal debate in favor of turning to look at the 'intruder'.

My mother leaned on the doorframe, her mouth twisted up in a familiar shit eating grin. After all, it was the same one I wore whenever I saw something funny or I thought I'd done something clever and when it was set in a face that was only a few degrees different than my own, it was little different from looking in the mirror. "You're ridiculous, you know that?" she said, toeing bits of discarded laundry out of her way as she walked over to me. "You going to clean this room up anytime this century?"

"Probably not," I admitted, tearing my mind's eye away from the image of everything higher than her mouth just being _gone_ to focus on my immediate surroundings. Her death wasn't real – yes it was, it just wasn't _here_ –, this mess was. I'd never been able to maintain cleanliness for very long and most of my 'clean-ups' were mass purges of things that I just couldn't justify keeping around anymore.

In my past life, it was just one aspect of my character my dad loved to bring up as evidence of my worthlessness – despite his own areas of influence in the house being just as bad or worse –, taking photos of my room as a way of 'shaming' me into taking action. In this life, my mom took it in good stride, only asking that I keep my laundry circulating and fire hazards to a minimum. "Y'need anything?"

"What, I can't just be glad to see my favorite daughter's face first thing in the morning?" my mom asked as she sat down on the edge of my bed. "Of course, that's a little bit of a trick, what with all that hair exploding everywhere."

I let my face slam down into my pillow again. "I'm your only daughter, and you're mocking my pain."

"Excuse you, all my patients inform me that my bedside manner is impeccable," she shot back with a laugh. "Anyway, you did get a couple calls in overnight."

No surprises there, what with me being just about the only local repair person. There wasn't much call for another in a village of twenty-five or so people, especially when half of them could do most of the fixes themselves. "Old Lady Myers?" I guessed without lifting my head. She was one of my regular 'customers', to the point where I might have suspected her constant stream of technical failures was just an excuse to have a young person around to fuss over, seeing as her _actual_ grandkids never bothered to visit.

"Washing machine this time," my mother confirmed. "And apparently the wind farm's output has been fluctuating badly over the last few days and Daniel wants a second opinion what might be going wrong."

Hmn. That sounded like it could be fairly interesting, along with coming with a decent bit of dosh on the side, even if it would probably require going to the top of those windmills at some point in the process. "I'll take a shower and get going then."

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

Uh… was I forgetting something? I couldn't –

"Breakfast?" my mom supplied for me, her tone laden with exaggerated exasperation. "You know, the most important meal of the day, that vital part of your metabolic process that keeps your body fueled and your grouchiness at a minimum?"

Oh yeah. "We got hash browns?" I asked.

"Probably. You want some bacon with that?"

My stomach growled, giving me a good evaluation for how empty it was. "Protein's always a good idea."

"Vegetables are too but I don't ever hear your stomach growling for those."

"Because Brussel sprouts and collard greens are evil, Mom."

I could feel her shaking her head in amusement despite not looking at her. "Seventeen years old and you still act like such a kid."

I raised my fist towards the ceiling, which must have made quite the image considering the rest of me was still lying face down in crumpled comforter with nothing but boxer shorts and an oversized T-shirt on. "Best method to attaining and maintaining eternal youth."

"Yeah, yeah. Breakfast will be ready in ten, Peter Pan. Second stair to the right and straight on 'til the kitchen," she said as she departed, the sound of her feet going down the stairs an unmissable and easy going rhythm.

I sighed and Leven whrred at me, even going so far as to gently peck me when I failed to respond to verbal cues.

"Go ahead and go downstairs," I told him with a lazy wave of my hand, only realizing as after that I'd come within inches of smacking him off of his perch. Shit, still not all the way awake. "Early bird gets the worm… or the bacon, in this case. I gotta freshen up first."

As the sound of almost silent wings whooshed out of my room, I pulled myself upright and out of bed. Pawing through the piles of my clothes, I finally managed to pick out some pieces that didn't have any obvious stains or particularly funky smells before I scooted over to my bathroom.

It was significantly less messy than my room, as towels tended to get removed and washed before mildew could set in, but there was still a sense of the haphazard around it; bottles of various grooming essentials clustered all around the counter, hairbrushes and combs piled around the curve of the sink, and discolorations from god knows what – it wasn't hair dye, this me had never taken that up – soaked into the enamel of the counter and the glass of the mirror above it.

And there, in that smudged and discolored mirror, was me.

The face in the mirror was younger, though not by much. It hadn't taken long for me to figure out that I'd been 'blessed' with one of those faces that failed to age at a rate that people expected. Pleasant enough for people old enough to still get some respect despite the harmless mistake, utter hell for the twenty-three year old woman still getting carded for every goddamn thing because people thought she was seventeen.

'I _am_ seventeen,' the me from this world said at that thought, like something in my observation is inherently insulting.

'Good for you,' I replied with a similar heat; diplomacy had always been hit-and-miss where I was concerned and teenagers were one of my standard 'miss' zones, even when they're technically 'me'. 'I'm twenty-three and sick of being condescended to.'

I pushed a hand back through my hair, watching the waves of brown sink and puff back up again in their natural defiance of any and all authority, including gravity and hairpins. Dammit, I'd forgotten how much of this stuff there'd been back when I'd been wearing it long. It was bad enough in Michigan where, even if the weather tended to make it explode, the hair at least kept my head warm in the winter. Here, in a region that was half desert and as hot as some outer circle of hell, it was impossible to tell where I'd gotten the idea that this much hair was a practical lifestyle choice.

And _of course_ there wouldn't be any scissors or razors in my bathroom that I could use to chop it down to a reasonable length. Why would there be? I'd never fucked around with shaving after the Safety Razor Incident – a common event in both universes apparently – and hadn't bothered with DIY haircuts until I was an adult living disability check to disability check in an economy where a haircut could run anywhere from ten to thirty dollars.

…well, at least in this life, I'd figured out the secrets of shampoo and conditioner because even though my hair was as thick as it ever was, it wasn't nearly as frizzed as I remembered it being in my first life, though part of that I might have been able to attribute to Orre's general dryness. Despite its many – and did I mean 'many' – flaws, excessive humidity was not among them.

"Maybe you should stop admiring yourself in the mirror and take your fucking shower," I growled at my reflection, the mirrored frustration serving as the final push to resuming my morning routine.

I quickly stepped out of my 'pajamas' and into the shower, twisting the head away from me until the water got to temperatures above freezing. Everything I needed – shampoo, conditioner, and generic bar of soap – were within easy reach and the rubber mat on the floor would keep me from slipping and dying like a chump.

Not that that was my primary concern, even as my hands busied themselves with the process of washing my various parts. My initial annoyance with my hair was quickly replaced by bigger concerns, good and bad, as I finally got my first proper look at my 'new' body.

I'd never been healthy in my first life. Poor nutrition and overwork seasoned with physical abuse, general neglect, and the intermittent near death experience tended to leave marks on a body, even without the consideration of scar tissue, which I had in spades anyway. By the time I died, the only thing I really had going for me was my immune system and my brain and out of those two things, my brain, riddled with neuroses and mental illness as it was, only counted as a half point in my favor. I lived with chronic pain, poor circulation, a bad back, early onset arthritis – though thankfully not rheumatoid –, joints that would literally throw themselves out of socket for a half hour or so before popping themselves back into place, and the ability to stay upright for a half hour before having to take a three hour lie down.

Now, I had a body that was not only pain free but obviously athletic and more than capable of pulling stunts that bordered on superhuman. Run for hours, climb any tree – or convenient cliff –, fist fight wild superpowered animals... it was ridiculous how close to Captain America I suddenly was.

For the me that hadn't made a habit of limping their way home on a daily basis, the surprise wasn't nearly so pleasant.

You see, the thing about having horrible things happen to you all the time is that those horrible things tend to leave horrible scars and now the collection that had been one of the defining characteristics of my first life was on full display here.

It's not like there hadn't been any scars before, but they were the small kind that you picked up as a fact of living. Accidentally cutting yourself peeling potatoes or learning a valuable lesson about manhandling anything with teeth, stuff like that.

Most of the ones that I'd had in my first life weren't small or 'normal'. They were the kind that scared the hell out of people, especially when they got an idea of how far they really went and how they got to be there in the first place. The long straight slashes that screamed 'scalpel' sliding across the skin of my torso, the stretches of pockmarks and acne scar craters covering my back and the outsides of my arms like a mockery of the moon's face, discolored patches on my elbows and knees from too many bad falls on too many rough surfaces… all of it was me and proof of what I could survive, right down to the almost subtle dimples that marked where a bullet had gone in and almost come out of my body.

After all of that, the friction scar from that same bullet was barely an afterthought, even if it was the first thing anyone would see of my past damage. Almost everything else could be covered up – and would be, because I'd gotten out of the habit of showing skin by the time I finished elementary school, even as the scars faded into their final forms – subtle, compared to the angry red-pink inflammation they'd started out as, but still present and permanent.

'How'd you get those scars?' they always asked, and because that was always the thing people asked and because my father had drilled the story into my head, I'd spill the same story.

'My mommy tried to kill my daddy but shot me by accident. Then she killed herself.'

The last point would be accompanied by my hand – always the right, always in the same movement – rising up to my temple, my fingers curled in the shape of a gun before I'd imitate the noise and the jerk of recoil. That's how it went almost every single time unless I really concentrated on keeping my hands down. Maybe it was some sort of phantom memory, like the image of my mother without the top of her head, twisted into a proper nightmare by time and trauma.

It wasn't really a wonder I didn't have many friends growing up with that as one of my usual opening statements. Nobody wanted to play with damaged goods, particularly if the kid in question didn't have the money to make it worthwhile. Eventually, I learned to just stop talking to people.

The sharp tak of a bar of soap hitting tile brought me back to reality and the task at hand. I had things to do today, things that didn't involve brooding over old wounds.

I finished rinsing myself off and stepped out into the steamy bathroom, grabbing a towel as I hit the switch for the overhead fan that would suck up the excess moisture before it started doing any real damage.

The clothes were relatively ordinary; black cargo pants, a basic black T-shirt, a red track jacket that could zip up far enough to cover just about all of my scars and provide enough color to keep me from completely looking like a drowned goth cat for the rest of the day… all that was left after that was to grab my bag, boots, hat, and Pokéball belt, though I doubted the latter would be seeing much use outside of keeping Leven close at hand. It wasn't like Orre was crawling with wild Pokémon, after all, and the chances that I would be running into one felt low.

Stepping out of my room suddenly presented another trippy moment.

* * *

The house was very much like the one I'd known as a child in my first life; kinda dingy and mismatched thanks to the various additions put on over the decades' long course of its creation – though I hoped this one had skipped over the lead piping, broken walls, and masking tape electrical wiring my dad's farmhouse had featured – and securely in the area of 'retro', with several different aesthetic styles shoved into any given room and 70's shag carpet that managed to make camouflage look camp. The drywall was covered in patterns that drew maps of new worlds in the imagination and the wood – railing, paneling, and first story floors – had been worn to a silky smooth, if slightly warped, finish by the constant movement of hands, feet, and god knowns what over the course of years. The place smelled like dirt road dust, dried mud, animal fur, and human sweat with other elements sneaking in where they could around the edges, like the smell of mothballs and my mother's favored fabric softener coming from the linen closet.

All of that was home and, for the first time in what seemed like years, I felt like I fit. This was my place, where I'd grown my bones and found my personality in earthy sepia tones and hand-me-down clothes, not some all-white cookie cutter apartment or too sleek modern affair that looked like it came out of a magazine and made me feel like I was invading someone else's territory.

Following the sound of sizzling, I poked my head into the kitchen. Another remix on an old and familiar setting, right down to the pea green floral wallpaper that peaked out around the edges of wooden cupboards and paneling. My mother had her back to me, her whole attention focused on the skillet in front of her, giving me a chance to stare at her without scrutiny.

She was shorter than me – one of the handful of hard facts I'd known about her in my first life was that she was 5'3", just like her mother before her – with the same thick, dark brown hair that refused to stick to any kind of styling that didn't feature hairpins or a pair of scissors, though hers was cut a lot shorter than my hair currently was and beginning to pick up grey strands that gave away her age. If she turned around, the resemblance would only intensify; the eyes, the nose, the mouth… everything except the cheekbones, the eyebrows, and the age lines would be almost exactly the same and even the short haircuts I'd started to favor before my death recalled her own.

An orange-furred Lycanroc – Konah, same name and same role as my childhood dog, if not the same coloring – was sitting patently at her side, tail wagging as each new piece of bacon was pulled from the skillet. Occasionally, one of the bits would find itself thrown in that direction and the Pokémon would bounce up to snatch it out of the air with a snap of its jaws. Leven was significantly less involved, seemingly content to sit on the back of one of the bar chairs lined up along the closest side of the island, soaking up the smell of bacon and… that wasn't the smell of frying potato.

"Well, it turns out we're all out of hash browns," my mom said, turning away from the stove with fry pan in hand and a sheepish smile on her face. "So I guess you're just going to have to settle for pancakes."

"I'll endeavor to survive," I said with a roll of my eyes as I made my way to the appliances, pouring some milk from the fridge into a mug. I heated up the milk in the microwave and, after mixing in the hot cocoa mix, added a shot of black coffee. Another quick twist of the spoon to make sure everything was distributed good and –

The mug disappeared from in front of me before I could even think about picking it up, leaving me to slowly turn and stare at my mom, who offered me nothing but a cheeky smile before she took a sip. "This is good," she said, taking another sip.

Deception. Disgrace. "That was _mine_ ," I complained.

"It's not like it took you more than two minutes to make it."

True, but it was the principle of the thing; you just don't steal someone else's food. Shelving the argument – it was just a cup of coffee, not like I was starving to death –, I grabbed another mug, repeating the process so that my stupid brain would stop hissing its grievance over the stolen food, and then grabbed the breakfast plate my mom had put together for me, eating as fast as I could without choking or dropping any of my food. I made sure to send a few bits of bacon in the direction of the Pokémon, though Leven seemed fairly content to let Konah have the majority of my offerings.

Maybe my Rowlet was a vegetarian? I snorted at the idea, both of a Grass-type shunning meat and of an entirely plant based food chain.

Soon enough, I'd cleared my plate and rinsed it clean of most of the debris. "I'll be back around lunch," I said as I ran to the door to slip on my boots. Grabbing my bag and hat, I held out my arm for Leven to perch on.

"Alright, Leven, let's go!"

* * *

As far as hometowns went, Chrysoprase wasn't so bad. It wasn't particularly crowded – not that many towns in Orre were, considering the general lack of interest in anything that wasn't Phenac City or that mess of a metropolis known colloquially as Neo Gateon – and, while it wasn't big enough to show up on most atlases of the region, it did have access to reliable wells and a near total absence of crime. And considering that this was the region with two major criminal teams and a sum total of ten cops to handle them, that statement was one hell of an endorsement.

It had started out as a mining town, like almost every other town in Orre. Semi-precious gemstones, mostly in the feldspar and quartz ranges, which included chalcedony, moonstone, agate, vermarine, onyx – not the Pokémon, though a few were rumored to have taken up residence in the caverns since their close –, sunstone, jasper, aventurine, and, yes, chrysoprase. Let it never be said that the common man is good at naming shit.

Given that there wasn't much call for those things in Orre – not much of a market for pretty rocks in a desert hellhole after all – and there weren't any direct trade routes to Unova or Kalos to offer incentive for increased output, Chrysoprase had never had a 'boom town' phase. Perhaps that's how we dodged ending up like Pyrite Town, which was a smashing success of capitalism until the demand for stone and ore faded away, leaving nothing behind but the rusted ruins of equipment, a massive underground city, and suddenly jobless miners who couldn't afford to move to a more prosperous region.

Our mines were still there if one cared to explore them, the winding tunnels and caverns full of crystals of every conceivable size, some of them even acting as natural support beams for the ceiling. There was allegedly a crystalline Onix hiding in there somewhere, but I'd never seen it during any of my visits and none of the adults that said they had could give anything more than an anecdote. Still, there were regional variants and Shinies in existence, so there wasn't any real reason to discount its existence out of hand. It would show itself to whoever it wanted to in the end, I supposed.

Outside of that, it was just a scattered collection of houses and small businesses connected by dirt roads and history. The Pokémon Center where my mom worked wasn't nearly half the size of one that a person would see in a proper city and the stores tended to be of a mom-and-pop nature, but it was enough for our needs and generally, everything worked out just fine for everyone.

I pulled up to Old Lady Myers' house, taking only the token amount of time to appreciate its cozy look – had it been painted pastel pink to begin with or had age bleached the color down from a far brighter hue? – as I parked my motorcycle and recalled Leven to his Pokéball. The Rowlet didn't need to be out for this and, barring the revelation of anything truly catastrophic being caught up in the innards of whatever appliance was busted today, it would only take a few minutes to fix. Then, I'd be off to the wind farm to grapple with whatever the hell was going wrong with our repurposed electrical generators, because the last thing we needed was a blackout.

* * *

Washing machine. Had to be the _one_ piece of equipment the old woman had that required I climb on top of it so I could _then_ climb in it to get at whatever the hell had gone wrong this time around. Bad enough that I was practically hanging upside down, but the smell of wet socks and Spring Fresh detergent was suffocating in this small space.

Still, the fact that I was half holding my breath didn't slow my hands down as they rooted around for the culprit. Eventually, I touched something that wasn't plastic or metal.

"These yours?" I asked as I pulled myself out of the machine, a pair of dripping Go-Goggles clenched in my fist. How or why the damn thing had gotten into the washing machine was beyond me, but at least they hadn't been damaged by their trip around the spin cycle… though, considering that they were made to survive sandstorms without a scratch, maybe I shouldn't have been surprised by the lack of damage.

"Ah! So that's where those darn things went to!" Mrs. Myers exclaimed before curling one of her hands under her chin. "Of course, I couldn't say why I have them in the first place. Not like I go anywhere," she mused. "You might as well take them. Little bonus."

I tried not to let my painfully fake smile fall as I put away my tools and my prize. I didn't care if I was fishing Gold Nuggets out of her dishwasher every other week; the headaches still wouldn't be worth it. "Please try to keep track of these sort of things in the future please," I requested as I left her house.

I had the feeling that she would purposefully ignore my request, but at least I'd tried.

* * *

The wind farm was less aggravating, if only because there was a puzzle more involved than 'what's stuck in your washing machine this time' to figure out. Though, I'd probably enjoy said puzzle more if I wasn't trying to solve it while standing on a rusted platform over thirty feet above the ground. That Leven was enjoying a bit of updraft assisted soaring instead of being an immediate source of comfort – not that my starter was in much of a position to do anything in the event that I did fall – didn't particularly help either.

"I can't see anything wrong with the motors," I yelled over the wind as I pocketed the penlight I'd been using to look around the inside of the wind turbine, shutting the cover with a 'clang' that made me regret being born. "And everything looked fine down below."

"So that leaves the problem somewhere between the farm and the town's transformer," Daniel agreed as he activated the lift, the electrical motor humming as we were lowered back down to the wonderful, wonderful ground. "Somewhere in the caves you think?"

The 'caves' in question were really just a bit of convenient tunnel; dark, confined, stable, and dry enough to make it easier just the thread the necessary wires through there rather than dig up a trench to lay the wires going to town in. There were a few passages that wound off into dead ends and the threat of wild Pokémon kept it from feeling entirely safe, but it was still easier just to move things through there rather than dig a new tunnel to achieve the same end.

"Probably. Might be some rocks fell or a Pokémon got to gnawing on the wires," I said as I hopped off the lift. "You want me to take a look?"

"Yeah, that's fine. If there are any Pokémon in there, they'll probably be Ground or Rock-type, which leaves my Luxray and lil' Ticker out to sea," he said, lifting his hat just high enough so I could see the Shiny Joltik nestled in the frizzy mess Daniel called his hair. "You'll call me when you figure it out, yeah?"

"Of course. Probably just be a bit of rock fall or something pinching the wires," I replied as I grabbed my bag from where I'd laid it down next to the base of the wind mill, Leven finally swooping down to rest on my shoulder again.

"Be careful down there," he called after me. "You only have Leven to rely on after all."

I twisted around to flash Daniel a confident grin. "Hey, if you can't rely on your starter, who _can_ you rely on?"

From past knowledge, I knew that this cave wasn't particularly dangerous. While there wasn't anything in the way of ambient light once you got a certain distance from the entrance, there weren't any pitfalls and the general lack of Pokémon in Orre meant that there wasn't much chance of being attacked.

Even so, there was an ominous feeling crawling down my back. The thing that had brought me back to life and sent me this world had wanted a show. Adventure and intrigue, it had said, not slice of life. Even if this was the 'tutorial level', there was no reason to think that I was somehow in a safe position.

"Worst comes to worse," I told myself as I slipped into the darkness and began gathering my Aura into my hand, lighting it up light a torch. "I can always punch my problems in the face."

Most of them, anyway, I added mentally as daylight disappeared behind me, leaving me with nothing but eerie blue flames and my Aura sense to guide my way.

Speaking as the kid who'd lived under lights out rules roughly on par with the average prison, using Aura as a flashlight was maybe fifteen percent better than trying to navigate a dark house via the backlight of a handheld video game system… though considering that that particular incident had led to the discovery of human teeth – baby teeth, sure, but not baby teeth belonging to the only child in the house – exploring a pitch black cave that was potentially home to an intelligent superpowered wild animal wasn't the creepiest situation I'd ever willingly thrown myself into.

The job itself hadn't been bad so far. The electrical lines had been slightly damaged, but it was nothing a bit of electrical tape and Repel couldn't fix.

Teeth marks had proven the existence of our guilty party, though I didn't know enough about the subject to get an exact identity. Something _with_ teeth, at least. Sharp ones set in a relatively small mouth. Beyond that –

Wait.

I stopped. Leven wasn't flying right now and even if he had been, his wings were built for silence. Meaning that the faint flapping I was hearing – leathery, not feathered – was coming from something else.

I slowly reached my free hand behind me to pull an empty Pokéball off of my belt before increasing the brightness of my Aura 'flashlight', catching the site of a batlike shape ducking behind a stalactite.

Zubat. Of course it would be a fucking Zubat.

Biting down my frustration, I called out. "Hey! You can't go messing with those wires!"

Let it never be said that I could speak Pokémon. My skills were largely of a technical bent and my Aura training had cut off before I'd learned anything truly earthshattering, but pulling a Doctor Doolittle wasn't within either of those broad categories regardless of my skill levels in either and I was no N Harmonia.

On the other hand, I wasn't stupid enough to think that Pokémon couldn't understand me. The fact that training was so easy – when it came to understanding commands at least, no word on the actual obedience – was just proof of that. Besides, it never hurt to show respect, regardless of the relative intelligence of the other party. I'd learned that lesson a long time ago with cats.

"You're a Flying-type, I can hear your wings," I continued, looking around the ceiling for any movement. In the highly probable event of the highly probable Zubat deciding to attack, I'd rather it not have the advantage of surprise. "You should know that messing with electricity isn't good for your health. I wouldn't want you to get hurt."

There was a soft chittering from above – and behind me, matched to the location of those leathery wings, which drew a frown from me.

That cry wasn't right for a Zubat. Zubats were screechy things. Woobat?

Before I could mentally tick through the list of Bat Pokémon I knew of, a pale fuzzy shape throw itself down from the ceiling at my head, smothering my face with downy fur as claws dug into my hat and hair. I may or may not have screamed; it was hard to tell given the situation.

"Chchchcht," the facehugger squeaked in response as Leven started batting the newcomer around with his wings, whrring and chuffing the whole way.

Finally getting the twin panics of 'can't see' and 'can't breathe' under control so I wasn't reaching to tear the obviously terrified Pokémon off of me, I reached up to touch it. "Can you get off of my face, please?" I asked calmly, though what with my face being covered and me trying not to get a taste of whatever the mystery Pokémon had last rolled in, it probably came out more like a mumbly "Ken you get off amah fiss, plise?"

That must have been clear enough, because the death grip loosened as my latest guest climbed up to sit on the top of my head, allowing blessed oxygen to finally reach my lungs.

Due to my freak out disturbing my concentration, my Aura light had gone out, leaving me back in that complete darkness and I doubted that I'd be able to just turn it on again without spooking my latest headpet.

So that left identification by touch.

"Well then, little buddy," I said soothingly as I felt my way to a bit of rock high enough to use as a seat. "Is it okay if I touch you?"

There wasn't any noise of protest, so I slowly raised my hands up over my head to feel out my new friend. The fur was fluffy and downy soft, but the ears were a point of interest; instead of being separate units, they were fused in the center.

"Hmm, not a Zubat."

I'd already figured that out from both the cry and the fur, but something about taking it slow like this felt right, like playing out a game of hide and seek with a small child that hadn't picked a good spot.

"Chriit."

I felt down along the curve of its head, tracing the relatively smooth lines of its nose. No heart-shape. "Not a Woobat or a Swoobat either…"

"Cht."

"So by the process of elimination, that means you're a Noibat!" I finally declared, drawing a pleased chitter from the little fuzz ball. _There_ we go. "Well, unless there are some other species of Bat Pokémon I don't know about. Wouldn't be surprised."

The Noibat squeaked happily as I stood back up and reignited my hand. Cute new friend aside, I still had a job to do.

"You're kind of far away from home, aren't you?" I asked as I followed the line, patching up the few damaged areas. The little bat hadn't come very far this way, apparently content with the section where I had found it. Probably because it was close enough to one of the exits that bugs would fly in to serve as a food source. "Must be very scary, being all alone in a strange place."

"Chiiit."

Mmmn. I hadn't even got a decent look at the Pokémon yet and I was well on my way to being hopelessly attached. "You could come with me if you like. I know a professor that could help you get home if you wanted," I offered. "But if you wanted to stay with me, I have a few empty Pokéballs on hand…"

Small claws dug through my hat and into my scalp, drawing a wince from me. Small but pointy. Something to consider the next time I felt like carrying Pokémon around on my body.

"Not right away. You can think about it while I finish up this job. Could even take you home and get you something to eat."

The Noibat's grip loosened as it made an inquisitive chitter.

"Pokéblocks, kibble, fruit, and beans. Plenty of eats to choose from," I promised as I sprayed the last of my Repel on a particularly exposed cluster of wires. The return of ambient lighting promised a nearby exit and I was just about ready to be done with this entire project, even if I technically needed to run back to the wind farm to give Daniel my evaluation and collect my motorcycle. "It's about time for my lunch too, y'know."

* * *

After suffering a few laughs from Daniel – "Only you could go into a cave to fix the wiring and come out with a baby Dragon-type." –, I headed back home for lunch, Leven flying overhead while the Noibat clung to my back, wide yellow eyes taking in the scenery around us.

Walking in the door with a basic knock and confirmation that it was, in fact, I who had returned, I slipped into the kitchen where my mom was trading bits of her salad and sandwich with Konah, the Lycanroc sitting in what could only be described as the most dignified display of begging possible.

Her face lit up as she saw the Pokémon clinging to my back. "Oh my goodness! What an adorable little Noibat! Where'd you find it?" she asked as she stepped around to my back to get a better look at my chittering load.

"You'd be amazed what you can find in caves these days," I quipped as my mother picked up the Noibat and started looking it over, intermixing medical evaluation with unprofessional appreciation while Konah gave the interloper and then me a studying look.

"Seems to be in fairly good shape, if a little on the skinny side…" The Noibat squeaked and my mom fed it a grape tomato, setting the Pokémon down on the table to give me her whole attention. "I couldn't tell you much more than that without giving an official examination but I don't think there's much beyond that to worry about."

"Cht!"

"Rwowl!" Konah replied loudly, sending the Noibat sprawling back on its butt before it came scrambling to me, squeaking at speeds that told me that I was being snitched to.

The rapid-fire chirping cut off as I held up a ripe pear and the Pokémon sank its fangs into the fruit, happily abandoning any thoughts of villainous Lycanrocs in favor of food.

"See?" my mom said. "Plenty of energy. And the friendliness is a good sign too; means that it probably wasn't a case of abuse or abandonment that brought her here in the first place." She looked at me again. "So what do you plan to do next?"

I shrugged as I fished some fruit for myself out of the fridge. "Thought I'd call Professor Acacia and get his opinion. Give the little guy –"

"Girl."

"– some options besides me or trying to scrape by in the local caves on her lonesome," I finished before popping a grape into my mouth.

"Well, my break's just about over now, but if you want my two cents," my mom said, giving the Noibat's fur a final ruffle and getting a happy squeak for her trouble. "I think your little friend is adorable and I have no problem with her becoming part of the family if she wants to."

The Noibat chirred happily at that before returning to its fruit, picking every scrap of it she could from it until all that was left was the core and the stem.

Mom gave me one last wave before she went out the door, likely going around back to the garage/stable where I kept my motorcycle and she kept her Mudsdale, Boxer, when he wasn't in his ball. While it was technically possible to walk to the Pokémon Center from our house without too much difficulty, both of us preferred riding in our respective styles.

She'd been an equestrian in my last life, doing competitions – I couldn't list all the ones that she'd done, only that she had gotten at least one trophy and a good collection of ribbons and there had been photos of her both doing barrel jumps and riding sidesaddle in a flouncy white Victorian dress – and spending all the time she could around horses until she simply didn't have the means to take care of one anymore. That my mom hadn't had to do the same in this one was… heartening, I guess. At the very least it was a piece of happiness she hadn't had the first time around, even if her Mudsdale wasn't exactly the 'dressage'-type.

I shook my head clear of the memories. I had to finish lunch and call Professor Acacia like I said I would. But first… I pulled an empty Pokéball free of my belt and set it on the table.

"Now, I realize that I said I was giving you options. This is just me laying out the option of joining my team… well, team of two at the moment…" I trailed off, only to be interrupted by the sound of the Pokéball activating. The ball wriggled once before giving the tone signal of a successful capture.

"That was… painless," I muttered, picking the ball up to look at it before releasing my newest Pokémon. She blinked at the kitchen around her, apparently not expecting to be out of the ball again so quickly.

"I just wanted to ask if you liked 'Barbara' for a nickname," I explained, roughly one second before I got a face full of plush purple fluff as my Noibat launched herself at me.

I'd take that and the excited chattering that followed as a 'yes'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated 6/20/2018.
> 
> Sorry about not doing anything for so long. Stuff – writer's block, adult responsibilities, pets being shits at inconvenient times… – happens. I've also been doing a lot of plotting on other stories that take place later in the series, though those won't be seeing the light of day until more research can be done and some other junk actually gets finished along with editing existing works to be more in-line with the internal continuity I've been building up and up to scratch to my evolving standards. Editing is eating up time as well, but it's helping with writer's block, so that's something.
> 
> Anyway, this is the Pokémon Orre Adventures rewrite, which will completely replace Orre Adventures the moment I catch up to all its plot points (though this may take some time as this one features better pacing). This time, I've done a bit more plotting ahead – though probably not as much as I should have – and getting my world-building notes in order, usually by grafting some similarly obscure and underdeveloped regions into my Orre, along with taping its map to the edges of Kalos and Unova.
> 
> A lot of stuff is still in the sketchy stage, but that's what planning is all about; taking the sketch and filling it out. The edits will serve to do that.
> 
> To those of you not familiar with the setting, Orre is the region featured in the third-generation Gamecube games Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, which I am casually awaiting Nintendo to announce remakes of for the 3DS and/or Nintendo Switch.
> 
> No rush.
> 
> To those of you familiar with the first version of this story; the broad strokes will be the same. Given that there was a sum total of two major events in that version and I've already changed up several points, including creating an original town for the sake of Orre being more than three population centers and the odd hole in the ground, that's not saying a lot. The creation of OCs to fill the background and expanding existing characters will also serve the same purpose.
> 
> If you're a little unclear on what the background is for this fic, I recommend reading the 'Chains Adventurous Prelude' that I uploaded and updated some time ago. It's a one-shot, but it does provide the set up for the rest of the series and introduces you to both the main character and … well either 'reoccurring nuisance' or 'overarching villain' works, I guess.
> 
> Nicknamed Pokemon are usually named after something preexisting, either in a pop culture or personal reference. EX: Leven being named after the Eleventh Doctor, Barbara being named after Barbara Gordon aka Batgirl, Konah being named after my childhood dog…
> 
> Chrysoprase is a gemstone, specifically a variety of chalcedony. It usually comes in apple green, but there's some variety in the colors it comes in. Its value is based on its color rather than any pattern to the stone itself.


	2. Excerpt from The Pocket Encyclopedia Exotica (Internet Edition), Chapter – Orre

The Orre Region, located to the south of Kalos and west of Unova, is considered an underdeveloped or Third-World country, due to its rampant crime, lack of natural resources and internal infrastructure, and absence of native Pokémon combined with a general absence of Pokémon in general. Thanks to the last point and the inhospitable environment discouraging local trainers from leaving their hometowns to go on anything resembling a Pokémon journey, neither the Pokémon League or the Pokémon Rangers keep a presence in the region, though there are Pokécenters available to the public in every major population center with smaller clinics available to fill the needs of smaller towns.

In the stead of Gyms and League challengers, most Pokémon trainers who wish to battle on a higher level participate in ‘Colosseum Challenges’ which take the form of single-elimination tournaments, with prizes usually taking the form of monetary rewards or TMs, though there are rumors of underground tournaments awarding live Pokémon as prizes, a practice disapproved of in many other regions due to the associated unethical breeding and capture practices.

Little is known of Orre’s ancient history, as the original civilization in the region was destroyed in some cataclysmic event 1000 years ago. While there are many theories as to what the exact nature of that event was, ranging from ‘meteor strike’ to ‘rampaging Legendary Pokémon’, it is agreed that this event was likely responsible for wiping out the local population of humans and Pokémon along with destroying a large portion of the geography, leaving behind an area which is now known as the Great Orre Desert.

While the details of the civilization and its workings are largely lost to history, there are enough extant ruins for Orre to draw archeological interest. While the region’s most famous ruin – the structure known as the Orre Colosseum – is in the desert, the most intact sites are found in the mountains and forests to the west, occasionally being rediscovered by mining operations. More than a few sites are inaccessible due to being built into mountains that were later revealed to be volcanic in nature, resulting in extreme heat and poisonous gases preventing any exploration beyond what automated drones can document.

After several centuries as being a ‘no man’s land’ considered too dangerous to even consider crossing, Orre regained interest as a source of cheap natural resources, with the first recolonization efforts beginning two centuries ago. These efforts were mostly focused on mining, though as it became cheaper and more efficient for other regions to mine within their own borders, the local economy collapsed, leaving only an international port, the remnants of the original enterprise, and the skeleton of an ill-fated cross region freight train in their wake. There are over thirty known ghost towns in the region, though undocumented ventures and the hostile nature of the environment mean that that number is not an exact figure.

In recent years, Orre has seen a resurgence of interest, not only in the ores and minerals that had been the basis of its first economy, but in the wave of technological innovation its harsh environment has required its residents develop. For example, anti-gravity technology, while something of a rarity in other regions, is so commonplace in Orre that almost all mechanics are capable of installing such components onto almost any kind of vehicle, as it is almost impossible to navigate the desert region without it. On other fronts, the discovery of Evolutionary Stone deposits in different parts of the region has resurrected interest in mining and negotiations are underway between various companies and the local government for mining permits.

The capital city of Orre is Phenac City, while the twin cities of Gateon Port and Neogate City boast both the highest population concentration and per capita income of the region. Other points of interest include the Lapidarian Highlands, Melchior Island, Mount Pyrrhus (known locally as Mount Battle), and Pyrite Town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated 6/20/2018
> 
> Little bit of in-universe information, just to help with the world building. The geography I'm working with for this fic is Kalos being to the north of Orre (separated by extensive mountain and forest ranges, where Holon and the Spires are located) and Unova to the east (also separated by a range of mountains). To the west is the ocean and to the south… a bit of ocean and then IDK what. Probably the ocean again, maybe a little bit more dirt. It's probably not much of anything worth mentioning. This is relevant to the story and will be sketched in better detail as it becomes relevant.


	3. Energy Root

If I had to describe Professor Gregory Acacia in a single word, it would probably be an expletive. If I was to give a more traditional sketch of the man, I would say he was a fifty-something silver-haired stick-bug of a man wrapped up in the standards of a Pokémon professor, from the lab coat down to being named after a tree. He was intelligent, eccentric, and more than willing to have their aides, interns, or any convenient eleven year olds do all their legwork… and just as prickly as his namesake.

And, of course, all of that meant that his looking and coming across like Peter Capaldi trying to pull off both the Twelfth Doctor and Malcom Tucker at the same time was entirely hilarious, though the tall walking stick added a wizardly twist to the final product.

"Did you trade in your moped for a fucking tricycle or were you waylaid by fucking Dialga?" he snapped as I entered the lab. "Because there are only so many ways to account for you arriving two hours after you called me when it's only a fifteen minute drive to town."

The tirade was somewhat offset by the Trapinch rubbing its face against his calf, making a groaning purr all the while.

Acacia's lab, besides being a tangle of haphazard organization and absent-minded mess that recalled the Fallout games or Doc Brown's garage more than anything I'd remembered from the Pokémon series. And even without the stacks of boxes shoved into the corners, oddly placed writing boards – both white dry erase and old fashion black chalkboard, all covered with scrabbly scraps of data and irregular notes –, irregular patchwork spreads of sticky note wallpaper, and piles of paperwork and scientific hooha taking up the tables, the place was something of a zoo, with Pokémon often wandering in to see what was going on with their provider. Not that it seemed to bother the Professor much; he liked Pokémon better than people in most cases and most of his guests were small and well-behaved.

Another Trapinch wandered over to where an abandoned pencil lay on the floor and, after a moment of consideration, started chewing on it like it was a piece of pocky.

Well, _mostly_ well-behaved. The fact that they mostly left his papers alone counted as that by most standards.

"The joy I feel during every one of our interactions aside, there are other people in the world than yourself with just as many problems that feel the need to call upon me to solve them," I replied with a roll of my eyes, pulling Barbara's Pokéball free of my belt. "And, as you know, solving problems takes time. Do the math from there."

"Oh, I _seriously_ doubt that you know anyone with as many problems as me," Acacia muttered as he walked around a table loaded with folders, loose papers, and other scientific bric-a-brac, walking stick clacking against the hard floor tile as he went. "…It was that Myers bat again, wasn't it?"

"Twice in one day," I confirmed, wandering over to look at a map covered in colored pins and scribbled sticky notes. That wasn't even close to her highest record, though that day had likely been an honest mistake. Today, I couldn't tell if her second mishap was honest or not but it had been a quick enough fix. "Second time just after I called you."

He swore under his breath, the finer details of what he said lost to me as I focused my attention on the map.

Professor Acacia specialized in the study of wild Pokémon, specifically in the demographics, dimorphisms, and distributions of various species across different regions. Why he'd picked Orre of all places to set up shop in, I couldn't say, but I figured it was either because he was local and disinclined to move or maybe because people were almost as scarce on the ground as Pokémon.

The pins were fairly sparse, though there were enough to show that there were populations of wild Pokémon lurking around the area despite the common perception of Orre being completely devoid of them. Why Orre was like that was one of the great questions surrounding the region, one that wasn't often asked because it first required people actually remember that Orre existed in the first place.

Most agreed, based on archeological evidence and fossil record, that it hadn't just always been that way. Something had happened about 3,000 years ago. Whether that 'something' was a meteor, a war, or a Legendary deciding 'fuck this area in particular', it had taken out just about everything alive in a hundred thousand mile radius at the same time and left a desert and too many ruins to count behind as evidence to be completely uninhabited until someone had looked at it and said, "Hey, I bet there's some sweet ass rocks hidden somewhere in this dust bin."

A sharp snap drew my attention back to the lab.

"You said you had something to show me?" Acacia said, lowering his hand.

I lifted Barbara's Pokéball to where he could see it as I walked over to a clear table. "Yeah. A Noibat I caught in the cave by the wind farm."

His eyebrows lifted to meet his hairline. "Noibat? This far south? That's incredibly out of range."

"Considering that she was immediately clingy the moment we established I wasn't going to attack her, I figure she got separated from her group," I said. By what, I didn't say and didn't know. A particularly rough windstorm, an unexpected attack from another colony of Pokémon, or even something as mundane as a poacher might be the answer to the question but seeing as I couldn't exactly ask her for the story, it was entirely speculation on my part. "If you want to take a look…"

"Of fucking course I want to take a look," Acacia snapped, taking the ball out of my hand and pressing the release. The red energy that came out quickly gathered into a familiar shape before turning into matter proper, leaving a blinking Barbara sitting on the table, her big yellow eyes taking in the new location.

The professor circled her, his hand quickly taking position over his chin as he studied the Noibat.

"My mother gave her a basic checkup and said that she's in good shape, but we'd need a proper exam to know anything that isn't readily obvious," I explained so he didn't have to retread what I already knew.

The professor nodded. "A Pokémon nurse would know how to pick out the regular suspects. You just caught this Pokémon today?"

"Just about two and a half hours ago."

"And she was all alone?"

I shrugged as Barbara leapt off of the table to scramble up my sleeve and take up position on my head, the faint plop of her chin hitting my scalp confirmation of her exact location. "Apart from a few lowercase bugs, yeah."

"That is odd. Most Noibat are found in groups with adult Noivern for protection. They also keep pretty strict migratory patterns on account of that and while some of those paths might run over Orre, I've never heard of any hanging around. Not enough fruit trees."

Made sense. A big Pokémon would need a large amount of food to function and a whole colony of them would take a whole lot of food, which was rather hard to find in a region that was half desert and almost entirely shit.

"That's why I was thinking she was separated somehow, either by human or natural intervention. Maybe a storm or something." I raked my brain for recent weather events. "Wasn't there a pretty fierce windstorm from the north a few weeks ago? I remember I had to help recalibrate the blades at the wind farm after it."

Professor Acacia hmmed. "True, but it could have come from Holon and the Spires just as easily. The wind has always been a bit wild in that area, even without input from Kalos weather patterns. I might have to consult with another professor to get the specific data I need." The statement almost sounded pained.

"Sycamore?"

A shuffle of papers barely covered up the sound of a scornful laugh. "Fuck no. I wouldn't trust that scatterbrained ponce to tie his own shoes, much less read a fucking weather forecast. I'm going to call Krane."

"The boring one?" I'd never met the man, but from what I remembered from the games and Acacia's complaints, there wasn't too much to miss.

"The _local_ boring one. Elm's a bland little shite too."

I rolled my eyes. "You must be _so_ popular at the nerd conventions."

The professor grinned. "I'm banned from visiting seven different institutions and I tried to fist fight Oak the last time I saw him in person."

He made it sound like a point of honor.

My brain immediately went about the task of imagining how such a fight would go down, though my own mental sketch of Professor Acacia favored him exploiting the shepherd's crook shape of his staff alongside more traditional cheap shots. "Which one?" I asked, only after asking the question and watching the darkly smug expression that Acacia had turn sour did I realize that it was probably a mistake.

"Samson and Samuel can _both_ fucking kiss my sweaty –"

I quickly tuned the tirade out in favor of playing with a Trapinch. While the little Antlion Pokémon weren't particularly fast little fellows, they were quick to come to a source of headscritches and I was soon surrounded by sawtoothed friends croaking for their turn in the scratching spotlight.

"– and I will personally unweave that fucking Alola shirt for the express purpose of making him _eat it_ one fucking fiber at a time."

I looked up from a green Trapinch, the Pokémon giving a small squawk as it realized I'd stopped scratching its chin. "Y'done expounding your affection for your fellow man or should I go back to focusing on the Pokémon?"

"Seeing as my legitimate complaints about that pair would likely go over your head, yes," Professor Acacia said, rolling his eyes at me as he turned away. "Anyway, since I will be attending to that task immediately, you can do something for me."

I held a hand. "I can't dance for shit, I'm not good with babies, and I don't deliver pizza," I said, lowing a finger for each point.  
He turned back around. "What the fuck does that have to do with anything?" he asked.

I waved off the question. "Just precluding some possible grunt work routes. What do you need?"

Acacia wandered over to a collection of local maps. "I'm between assistants at the moment…"

"Meaning you scared off the latest luckless bastard," I said, rolling my eyes. If Acacia had had any call in allocating his talents, charisma would have been his dump stat. "You'd think that anyone who's applying would have at least _heard_ of your reputation by now."

"Shush. Anyway, the last weasel fucked the fuck off with about five minutes notice which, you can imagine, is a bit inconvenient considering I live and work in the arse-end of East Bumfuck, Nowhere, and I still need someone to do the running around portion of the program. That's where you come in."

"Joy. Do I get paid?"

"I'm looking into the history of one of your Pokémon. Combine that with the pleasure of my company and not inconsiderable charm, you should be paying me," the scientist replied before reaching into his coat pocket. "But I'm not above offering the odd service or material good in exchange for your services," he added as he tossed me something red and rectangular.

I grabbed it out of the air without thinking and almost dropped it as I processed its shape. A Gameboy Advance? The layout was just as I remembered, though I was pretty sure that they'd never come in red –

"It's a Pokédex," Acacia explained. "Hoenn model, so it should be able to take anything Orre can dish out. Not that I expect you to go around testing that theory, Murphy's Law and all that. It's pre-programmed and will keep track of the exact numbers of everything you come across, even if you don't care to use the camera function."

I looked up from the Dex to look at the professor. "Why are you giving me this?"

"Did I not just explain the whole 'payment in material goods' thing? Besides, it's easier to monitor that than to attempt to decipher the chicken scratch you call handwriting," he said before turning back to his pin board, long fingers tracing bits of colored string. "Besides, it'll be easier to get location data that way. Better than trying to figure out what you mean by 'three or flourish miles south-west from the dry ravine'. This is Orre; every fucking indent in the ground deep enough to fall into is a 'dry ravine'."

"It would be easier if we had clearly established routes like other regions," I agreed, fiddling with the Pokédex in an effort to understand the controls. Of course, the route system would have never worked with Orre – forget the lack of towns to interconnect the damn thing in the first place, the desert itself refused to be mapped, constantly covering up landmarks and unfortunates with dunes every time a sandstorm blew through. Putting the illusory safety of a formal route through it was just begging for something or some _one_ to get destroyed. "So, what areas are you interested in?"

Professor Acacia gestured at the map with his index finger, indicating a large area that ran from about ten miles south of his lab to the edge of the badlands and then west onto the nearest river. "I'm not asking for a grid search, but a general coverage is fine," he added. "Just take a look around, point the Pokédex at any Pokémon you happen to see, and – if it isn't too much difficulty – don't capture the entire wild population."

Ha. Whoever heard of catching two Pokémon in one day in Orre? "I'm going to be out past dark, given a spread like that," I complained even as I made to get started. "Probably end up burning through half a tank of gas!"

"Yeah? I'd say that'd just about cover the cost of your favor and the Pokédex then!"

* * *

Orre is, to put it plainly, rough country. The desert was probably the worst of it – though the mountains that cut the region off from most land routes weren't exactly the portrait of benevolent geography either – and the rest… well. Let's say that when your region has impenetrable old-growth forest on one end that bleeds into scrubland that eventually turns into proper sunbaked badland before becoming proper sandy hellhole and all of that fits into a pattern like a goddamn impact crater of unlivability, the popular theory that something slammed into the place like the fist of a pissed off god a couple of thousand years ago holds more than a little water. That there were almost no extant Pokémon species exclusive to the region just reinforced that theory. Anything we had was either bleed over from our neighboring regions or species that people had brought over from somewhere else and released for some reason or another, though a few people had theories that placed a handful of species as Orre natives that got taken to some other region sometime before the Great Fuckening and then brought back over.

I couldn't really offer much to the speculation, though I had enough scraps of archeological experience under my belt to know that a number of Legendary Pokémon associated with other regions had held some significance to whatever people had originally lived in Orre. Rayquaza's presence in the 'pantheon' wasn't a terribly great surprise, given that the broad territory of 'sky' covered quite a bit of the planet, and Celebi fit with the forests in the area, but the marks of Alolan influence were weird, though the depictions were generally limited to Solgaleo, Lunala, and Necrozma.

Maybe that was some evidence of cross-cultural exchange? Ea–

I shoved the harmless thought away before it could settle and tightened my grip on the handlebars of my motorcycle. That wasn't my business. I wasn't an archeologist and if I had ever had any ties in the archeological community of Orre – which was maybe ten people at best –, they were long gone now and I was in no position to be asking anyone questions.

Slowing my motorcycle down to a stop, I pulled out the Pokédex and – after a minute of fumbling with the half-familiar controls – snapped a picture of a wandering herd of Tauros and Bouffalant. I was far enough away that none of them were breaking away from the herd to throw down with me, but a few looked like they were considering the prospect.

The fact that I'd punched one out – forget guns, _Aura_ was the great equalizer – the last time they tried was hopefully a deterrent, but Pokémon were unpredictable in that way. What might have inspired one to back off could strike another as a challenge or a training opportunity.

There was a peep from my right as a Fletchling popped its head out of a scrub brush tree to stare at me. Huh. I'd never seen one of them in Orre before. Maybe someone had brought it over and released it?

"Hey," I said as I snapped a pic. As I pulled the Pokédex away from my face, I pulled out a Pokéblock out of my pocket with my free hand. Breaking off a piece of it, I tossed it to the little bird Pokémon. "If you're not a wild Pokémon, there's a Pokémon professor that lives that way and a small Pokémon Center beyond that." I pointed in the direction of Professor Acacia's lab and Chrysoprase. "They'll make sure you get taken care of if Orre's too hard for you."

The Fletchling whistled at me, the shrill sound occasionally interrupted by even harsher vocalizations like punctuation. I couldn't understand the letter of what it was saying, but its Aura was definitely one of someone direly offended.

I crossed my arms. "I'm not saying you're weak, I'm just saying that this place is very different from Alola and that, if shit isn't working out here, you've got other options. Don't jump on me for offering help."

The Pokémon whistled at me again, its Aura no more friendly than it was before, and disappeared into its tree again.

Well, so much for that. I drove off, mentally mapping out where I'd been and where I still needed to go. I was maybe a third of the way done checking out the area the professor had requested and the sun was already beginning to set.

I'd called my mom before I'd set out, giving her a ballpark idea of when I'd be back home.

"Are you sure? It get dangerous after dark and you haven't refueled your motorcycle in the last week," she'd said.

I'd leaned back to look up into the sky. While the blue was almost painfully bright, there was no question that that light would only last for so long.

"Well, I replaced my headlight a few weeks ago, so there shouldn't be any problem on that end," I decided before checking my gas tank dial and then the tank itself when the number didn't make sense. Full, despite running around constantly and having no chance to refuel. Weird. "And I've actually got a full tank. Between that and the four or five hours before the sun starts to set, I'll probably be on the way home before it starts getting dark."

The follow-up of 'barring accidents or incidents' went unspoken but I had a feeling she'd heard it anyway.

"Well, drive safe," my mom said after a painful pause. "I'll leave some leftovers in the refrigerator that you can heat up when you get back."

"Thanks. Love you." Then I'd hung up, slinging the hold-fashioned phone receiver back into its holster on my bag. It was a clunky, almost ancient style of Pokégear, but it was one of the few designs that could physically hold up to almost everything Orre could throw at it and come out working on the other end. The fact that it was fairly easy to mod was convenient too, even if the trade-off was a system that had to be strapped and sewn into a carrying bag, which – thankfully – had some bigger on the inside property, though asking me to explain the physics was a bit much.

I was half tempted to pick up the phone again, to call anyone who could provide me with some companionship I could understand all of. This ride was long, hard, and boring, with little in the way of anything interesting to break up the tedium of dirt, dried sand, more dirt, half-dead tries, rocks, and – guess what – even more fucking dirt.

"At least I'm more than halfway done with this bullshit favor," I groused to the air, Leven making a sympathetic noise from where he was resting on the back of my bike.

There weren't that many Pokémon out here, which I wasn't surprised by. Most regions would have had a few colonies and swarms visible within a few dozen feet of a forest, but here? You'd lucky to see five Pidgeys in a single group. Over the course of this whole trip, I'd seen maybe forty Pokémon total and half of that number had been the collection of Tauros and Bouffalant from a few miles back.

There were even less to be seen in the desert proper. The Trapinch line and the various cactus knockoffs were about the only things that could really do anything in that place long term – and though I'd heard a few rumors about Sandiles, it was the sort of rumor that had the smack of urban legend.

A howl ripped across the empty plain, drawing an involuntary shiver from my spine even before the rest of the chorus chimed in.

The pack of Houndour and Houndoom _were_ real, even if some might say that the Sandiles were more believable. While Professor Acacia had an idea that they were in the area, trail cams hadn't given him much of a number beyond a ballpark of five at minimum.

I had nothing against the species. Heck, they'd been one of my favorite Pokémon to draw as a kid in both lifetimes. But as someone who'd grown up with the threat of coyotes and the reality of 'guard dogs' that hated anything that breathed? Just the sound was enough to make me want to hightail it back home and lock the door behind me. The idea of running into a pack of five or more hellhounds wasn't exactly tempting with my father's past warning about coyotes ringing in my ear.

'They'll bite your hamstrings so you can't get away. Then, once you're down on the ground, they'll start eating your insides. And you'll be awake to feel it the _whole time_.'

And I was too close to comfort to that noise for that memory to be shoved aside easily.

I came to a stop and, after withdrawing my starter, pulled Barbara's Pokéball free of my belt. "Might be running into some trouble up ahead," I told the Noibat as she settled onto my hat after the initial startle of release. "You're a Dragon-type, so a Houndoom shouldn't be able to hurt you like they could Leven, but…"

I trailed off. But I don't know how many there are. I don't know if they're looking for a battle or a straight up kill. I don't –

Barbara chirped, drawing my attention back to reality.

Right. Standing still and mumbling about horrible ways to die wasn't exactly going to improve my odds of survival and I still had a favor to complete. I revved up my bike again and switched on the headlight.

"Once more unto the breach, you absolute fucking moron," I muttered under my breath before I started driving again, Barbara flying just above and behind me.

* * *

Gregory Acacia wasn't overly acquainted with sleep. It wasn't on account of his nigh-religious addiction to coffee – caffeine had stopped giving him a buzz decades ago and he mostly stuck with the habit because he liked the taste and hated the withdrawal symptoms – or even because of some of the shit he'd seen over the years. He'd just… never been good at it. Never been able to get his body to lie comfortably, never been able to stay down for more than three or four hours at a time, and never quite been able to shake the buzz of excess energy from whatever part of him wasn't demanding that he take a damn break.

But even if he was capable of getting in six or seven hours of oblivion, he wouldn't have been asleep by seven in the evening, which meant that not only was his phone close at hand, Acacia had it picked up and up to his ear by the second ring.

"What's the crisis?"

"I'm with the Houndoom pack right now," Delaine said immediately, her voice slightly distorted by the phone quality. Even through that, Acacia could hear a distinct shakiness to her tone, like the shadow of some immediate danger had passed over the girl a second ago.

That had him standing in a heartbeat. "What?"

"They're… they're not doing anything. Really, under the circumstances, they're being downright _friendly_. But there's something wrong with one of them. A Houndour. I don't… I don't know what to do with this, Professor," she said, before she pulled her head away from the receiver to say something he couldn't quite make out. Wait… was she was floating ideas of what that 'something' could be? "Rage Syndrome? No, it's been several minutes, would have seen a change by now. Rabies? Or... is it a Shadow–?"

Even if every single one of those ideas was wrong, the fact that they were being _suggested_ told him plenty about the situation. "Delaine! If you're thinking what I think you're thinking –"

She quickly her ear to the phone again. "I'm going to try to capture it and bring it back to the lab."

Dammit. "Delaine, that is dangerous –"

"It's in a _hole_. It's not getting out of there without help and it can't get at me unless I let it."

"Don't–!" She hung up. "…do anything reckless," he finished.

Motherfucking teenagers.

He ran out of his lab and gave a loud whistle. A high pitched hum that almost sounded like singing immediately started up, its source making itself known against the silhouette of the moon; a Flygon. The Dragon-type settled to the ground in front of its master and, once Acacia was straddled on its back, it immediately took to the sky.

"Right. Houndoom pack around a hole. Probably around the badlands, seeing as that's where they always show up on the trail cams."

Shadow. Shadow. It didn't mean anything – unless she meant Shadow Ball? No, that didn't fit into the context of 'half-maddened beast'. He'd ask Delaine what she'd meant when he caught up to her… if the rabid Pokémon hadn't torn her apart first.

Orre's badlands passed beneath them quickly, the rocks and trees blurring as the Flygon ate up the distance between the lab and where he assumed Delaine would be. If she wasn't there, Acacia would correct course and look somewhere else. He hoped that his first guess would be correct.

It was. The Houndoom pack clustered around a hole in the ground was the first confirmation, with Delaine's motorcycle – where her Noibat was perched between the handlebars – being the second. The fact that Delaine herself was absent wasn't reassuring.

Before Acacia could bring himself to start scripting his apology to the girl's mother, a familiar face popped out of the hole.

"Delaine!"

The girl flopped forward, a loud whine coming out from under her before she managed to get another leg up out of the hole and stop squishing whatever she was carrying. "I'm fine, I'm fine."

She had the Houndour wrapped up in her arms, its legs bound up in her jacket while the carrying strap from her satchel was wrapped around its mouth to make an impromptu muzzle. It didn't stop it from growling and squirming, but it wasn't in much of a position to be doing much more than that.

It was a half-clever improvisation that didn't make up for the stupid decision she'd made in going after a potentially rabid Pokémon with her bare hands.

"You didn't think of trying to capture it with a ball?" Acacia snapped.

"It crunched the first one I tried," Delaine replied, making the action of adjusting her grip as the Houndour tried to squirm free again look like a shrug. "After that… well, my hands were full."

"Smartass."

"Better than being a dumbass."

"Oh, you're definitely one of those too," Acacia growled as he fished around in his pocket for a Pokéball. Producing a Great Ball, he tapped the Houndour on the leg, the Pokémon offering up a surprised yelp before it disintegrated into red light. As soon as the ball gave the tone of a successful capture, he clipped it to his belt. "Right. You are going back to the lab, right now. Both of you."

"Yeah. I'll… we've got to get my observations written down."

"That's hardly my first concern at the moment."

* * *

I didn't want to be here.

'Here' could have been anything from 'Acacia's lab' to 'this planet' or even the vague concept of 'consciousness', but I was pretty sure that I'd reached the point of exhaustion – mental, emotional, and physical – where the distinction didn't really matter.

Yet here I was, sitting in an office chair as Professor Acacia's tirade on recklessness coasted right past my ability to give a damn about the content but not past the anxiety that cared about authority figures liking me and wouldn't stop shrieking about how I was bound to die horribly if they didn't.

Did I want to go home so I could just want to fall asleep and not have to deal with any crises for a few hours? Probably, but here I was; awake, tired, and yo-yoing between boredom and internal screaming. Hopefully the only thing showing on my face was the tired part.

The Houndour was pacing the interior of an examination room turned isolation chamber, its frustration clear whenever it passed the window in the door. While there was food and water in there, it hadn't touched either yet. Professor Acacia had made reference to applying some Sleep Powder so he could hook up an IV to avoid dehydration, but it was clear that the option wasn't feasible in the long term.

If we couldn't make any headway with the Houndour, couldn't get it to give us the modicum of trust it would take to feed and water it, it would die. Slow, more than likely. Starving took time and was miserable for every second of it. Thankfully, I didn't have much of the same experience with dehydration.

The position of helplessness wasn't particular fun, especially when I was itching to do something. Offering comfort to the Pokémon was out of the question until it relaxed and while running laps around the lab was technically an option for burning off the nervous energy filling me, I doubted it would do anything about the source of my anxiety. Besides, I didn't feel much like confronting the Houndour's packmates outside without any sort of news. Maybe they wouldn't understand what I was saying, but I didn't feel right not saying anything to them at all.

Sleep, likewise, was out of the question. Too much going on, too many thoughts buzzing around in my head to remotely approach anything resembling 'calm'.

I sighed, letting my head fall into my hands. What was my life? Besides complicated, that part was already obvious. One big fat ball of stress, probably.

Thankfully, the professor came around to distract me from my overcomplicated thought process.

"Alright, tell me what your 'observations' are."

Taking a moment, I tried to organize my many, many misgivings into words. "Well, besides the obvious behavioral displays, there's something wrong with its Aura. Like… that Pokémon has been fundamentally warped on an emotional level. Whether that's by abuse or more arcane methods, I couldn't tell you, but it…," I turned my hand over in lazy circles as I fished around for the right words. "Hatred, fear, and anger are dominating its emotional processes at the moment and it only takes a little push to send it into a violent frenzy. It has no concern for its own wellbeing, no concept of mercy or rules. That Houndour is… I don't know what it's living for."

"So you're saying it's unsalvageable."

I sat up straight, any thoughts of falling asleep pushed far away by the immediate anger at the suggestion. "No. Never. It… it just needs a reminder that there's other things besides that. It'll take some work and more than a little time, but it can be saved."

It had to be. I'd been in that hole once, known what it felt like having nothing but negative feelings roiling around inside, always threatening to explode out at the lightest aggravation, and it had taken someone treating me like a human being to give me a reason to climb my way out. Besides, I knew how the games worked – abandoning a Pokémon just because it wasn't powerful or useful was never the right answer.

"You said something about Shadow earlier."

Did I? I'd been mumbling in between the snatches of phone conversation earlier, but it was hard to sort out what thoughts had escaped my mouth. Either way, I'd have to explain it now. "Cipher's been making Pokémon like this as weapons but the process…"

Acacia threw up a hand. "Back the fuck up for a second; Cipher?"

Was I supposed to know that? I think the answer was 'no'. "They're a Team," I explained. "Not like Snagem, but like Rocket, at least in terms of scale, ambition, and methodology. They're… I don't know what they want. World domination, maybe. I know that they're paying off Snagem to supply them with Pokémon and that they're turning those Pokémon into Shadow Pokémon…"

"Where did you hear about them?"

"Internet." If the excuse worked for Timmy Turner, it could work for me. "Chat forum rumor mills mostly, but they've apparently been doing a little recruiting around Pyrite Town along with distributing Shadow Pokémon through the local Colosseum as prizes… selling them as being more powerful than other Pokémon. Observations indicate a lack of self-preservation and berserker tendencies…"

Lies, lies, lies, lies, liiiieeees.

The professor fell quiet for a moment, his expression more serious than I'd seen it in a while. After a minute or so of silence, he finally spoke again. "I might need to call Eagun about this."

I stopped.

Eagun Logos was the Aura Guardian of Orre. Not just by default; the old man might have been mostly self-taught – it was an often overlooked ability and almost impossible for a person to learn anything about utilizing it without instruction –, but those homebrew skills were enough to make him the unquestionable authority on the subject in almost every region, which combined with his own archeological research, meant that his opinion was highly respected when it was offered, even if his duties kept him from going to any conferences that he'd been invited to.

He had also been my teacher. That wouldn't have been a problem if not for the fact that my apprenticeship hadn't so much ended as blown up spectacularly.

If I was being fair, sixth-tenths of the situation had probably been my fault. It had been me who'd found the poacher and it had been me who beaten the man half to death. I've always been a reactive personality, easily infuriated by injustice and blatant unfairness, regardless of if it was aimed at me or someone else. The sight of that Pokémon caught in the snare was more than enough to set me off and, with that intent to injure combined with my half-grasp of Aura, I was immediately at his throat.

There wasn't really an explanation for it. I'd wanted to hurt him and hurt him bad. Maybe so he'd understand what it felt like, maybe because I wanted to exact vengeance. But by the time Eagun had caught me and stopped me, the poacher had two black eyes, a broken arm, two broken legs, more busted ribs than whole ones, and more than a few teeth missing out of his skull.

The poacher had lived, even if they had to take him to a hospital down in one of the big cities. Nobody pressed charges against me or him, because I was a kid and Sherles figured the guy had received as good as lesson as he would have got with a prison sentence, but I didn't doubt that it made my reputation for those that paid attention to those things.

That didn't mean that I got off without any other consequences. Eagun had immediately terminated my apprenticeship and shoved me back to my mother, none too subtle about his desire to never see me again. There was no talking to, barely any explanations. Just 'pack up your bags, you're going home, you' can't be here anymore'. To a fourteen year old who had practically been a member of the man's family and didn't entirely understand what they had done so wrong as to deserve that treatment, it was tantamount to betrayal.

That had been a little under three years ago. The me who had lived through it was still bitter, still upset at being punished for something that wasn't even wrong – people that hurt others were supposed to get hurt right back, right? –, but the me who was new to the situation? I couldn't quite bring myself to feel anything more than resignation because that, right there, was the story of my life. Do my absolute best to succeed in whatever situation, disappoint anyway through a combination of bad luck, past trauma, and a complete failure of understanding some unwritten code of conduct nobody had ever cared to explain to me, and get discarded as soon as my deficits became clear. That was why I'd never been good at keeping friends or family members around; I just didn't have enough good points to make it a worthwhile effort to deal with the eternal problem child.

"Go ahead," I said, no emotion escaping into my tone. "He's the expert, after all."

"Delaine–"

"I'm –" an adult, "–mature enough to know when it's important to call in an expert, even if it's –" I cut myself off before trying again. "I can keep my bullshit under control. Hell, I can even disappear for a few days if that's what's what you need to get Eagun's help. He made it clear the last time he saw me that he never wanted my shadow darkening his door again. If that extends to any building he happens to be in…"

I let the sentence trail off, letting the silence supply the rest of the message – I'm willing to pay whatever price I have to pay if it gets us the help we need.

"I'm not going to mollycoddle the old goat just because he didn't know how to handle emotions, regardless of if they belong to himself or a child," Professor Acacia said flatly, crossing his arms, clearly having none of it. "If Eagun can't deal with your presence here, he won't be any help in the first place, seeing as you're the best way of measuring that Houndour's emotional state I've got. Besides, I'm only calling him because I don't have any better ideas and, seeing that I am a brilliant scientist, it's only a matter of time until one occurs to me. Either way, I'm not giving up my assistant to satisfy Eagun Logos's antiquated moral compass."

The indignation on my behalf was comforting, more than any empty platitudes could be, and I couldn't help smiling at it.

"Thanks, Professor."

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated 6/20/2018
> 
> Professor Acacia. Named after a particularly prickly tree species that never the less provides nourishment for animals, particularly insects (and that one herbivore jumping spider, Bagheera kiplingi) and has a few medicinal purposes. It's also a favorite meal for giraffes and gazelles, even if the thorns are supposed to act as a deterrent.
> 
> I picked out Acacia's Pokémon based on what sort of animals like acacia trees… and then redid it because a Girafarig isn't a practical ride Pokémon and the Trapinch line was already associated with him (also Flygon is awesome).
> 
> Instead of a generalist 'Pokémon expert' label, I decided to give Acacia a specialty that would be relatively easy and interesting to track in Orre – Pokémon distribution and demographics. After all, all the professors in the games have specialties in the field… and Professor Juniper's father is established to have a fairly similar focus (distribution and biology), as does Professor Willow from Pokémon Go (distribution and habitats).
> 
> Professor Acacia is an original character that I've been knocking around ever since I considered doing a fan novelization/remake of the games like... two years ago? Originally, it was going to be a fan comic, but I only got about... ten rough pages done before hitting a stall. Word of advice to those just starting out in writing, fanfiction or original; plotting is good. Like you don't have to map out everything exactly, but you should at least try to write out your primary chain of events, which you can build up with associated ideas as they hit you so you don't have to keep all that stuff straight inside your head.
> 
> Trust me, it's nothing but a headache.
> 
> I gave Eagun the last name of 'Logos' because his name in the Japanese version is 'Logan' and it was too rhyme-y to feel right. Plus the fact that 'logos' means 'speech', 'plea', 'reason', or 'discourse' in Greek… Eagun is also an Aura guardian because of Rui's own ability with Aura in the game (which, admittedly, predates the other uses in the series and is somewhat different) and I figured that Delaine wouldn't just know how to do it on her own so... teacher/former student interpersonal drama.
> 
> Rage Syndrome is a real life condition in canines, mostly in English Cocker Spaniels.
> 
> Yes, I'm fleshing out Delaine's Pokemon party a lot more this time, along with trying to create a more... organic origin to her coming involvement in the events to come.
> 
> A lot of the nicknames for Pokemon mentioned in the last fic will end up staying the same, ex. Wes's Umbreon being Chaya (after the Hindu goddess of shadows), his Espeon being Zener (after zener cards which are a method of testing ESP), Delaine's Rowlet being Leven (after the Eleventh Doctor)... but new Pokemon get nicknames as well, like Delaine's Noibat being named after Barbara Gordan, aka the first Batgirl.
> 
> The chapter names are going to be stylized after certain items and moves from the games (possibly the TCG as well, since I'm drawing ideas from there as well), usually relevant to the subject of the chapter.
> 
> Anyway, feel free to ask any questions in the comments/review section. I will answer them either in-story or in the next Author's notes. Reviews, criticisms, and commentary are welcome, as always.


	4. Charcoal

I'd gone home after we'd confirmed our course of action. Even if Eagun dropped everything the second he got the call and came running full tilt on the fastest bike he could get his hands on – not that there was much of a selection in Agate Village, going by my memory of the place –, it would take hours for him to arrive, which more time than I had in me at the moment. With a more realistic ETA of tomorrow around noonish, I had time to go home and get some sleep after giving my mom a vague sketch of the situation.

The next day, I woke up early with only a few hours of sleep to show for it. I'd never been a sound sleeper, probably because sleep was one of many activities that didn't mesh well with the 'CONSTANT VIGILANCE' and recurrent abstract nightmares of PTSD. The fact that this body wasn't used to that cycle and therefore felt like shit the first time it went through it was an annoyance, but a livable one. After all, it'd catch up to my nonsense sooner or later and today's wakeup was already miles better than yesterday's wakeup call of 'what the fuck is going on here?'.

Mom dragged a few more details out of me over breakfast, taking my previous sketch into something more comprehensible. At least it was enough to make her drop her protests about me interacting with Eagun and switch the conversation to more comfortable fronts, like small tips on how to handle the Houndour or going over what Professor Acacia had already tried. By the time I left, I had a handful of things to try and my mom's promise that she'd go over to check on the Pokémon herself once she had the chance. It was a small reassurance in the face of all the bad stuff looming down the road, but the fact that it was there at all was… comforting. Like it wasn't just me against the world and that there were people who cared waiting in the wings to help.

What an odd and novel idea. Me, not being on my own. Too bad I'd spent so long only being able to trust and rely on myself – and only half the time, thanks to my miscellany of various problems – that I couldn't quite bring myself to believe it.

I parked my motorcycle twenty feet away from the front door to Professor Acacia's lab, dismounting just in time to receive the attentions of the Houndour's pack mates as they gave up their vigil near the door to focus on something that they could actually get to.

"Just came by to check on your friend," I said as I stepped through the crowd, mindful not to step on any toes along the way. "I'll be back out to give you the news once I get it, okay?"

There were a few whines and dissatisfied growls at that – though one went so far as to yawn at me – but none of them forced their way through the door when I opened it, so I assumed they got the gist of what I'd said and didn't hold any hard feelings towards me regarding the capture of their pack mate.

The lab wasn't so different in the morning light compared to that of the setting sun – some papers had been shifted and a few of the Pokémon allowed to wander had curled up in convenient beams of sunlight that traversed into not-so-convenient areas of the floor, but nothing catastrophic had torn through the place while I was away.

Professor Acacia on the other hand, looked awful. Nothing too obvious – the man had an intensity that made the visual signs of sleep deprivation hard to pick out – but there was a focus and tension in his body that seemed wound as tight as piano strings and nowhere close to relaxing any time soon. Actually looking at his Aura only reinforced that impression – while it still had the general feeling of his usual cool metallic green that was equal parts chill metal and spring greenwood, today it was vibrating with all of the anxiety, irritation, and frustration that he wasn't letting show on his face.

"Any improvement?"

Acacia pursed his lips for a moment before answering. "Well, it fell asleep. More of a catnap sort of thing than anything truly restful, but I didn't have to use any Sleep Powder, so I suppose we can mark it as a win that it managed to relax that much." The professor leaned back in his chair, his natural scowl translating more as frustration with the situation than with the subject in the center of it. I could relate – powerless wasn't an enjoyable position to be in. "As for eating… no. It's been thinking about it, but beyond smelling at the bowls, it hasn't touched them."

Damn. "Well, my mom said that she'd be over to give an assist once she got off work or got someone to cover for her later," I offered. "If that doesn't work... I don't know, I could try something."

"Like what?"

"Um." How to phrase, how to phrase… "I know a little about handling people and animals with trauma," I said finally.

It wasn't a lie – in my first life, I'd been in therapy for over a decade and made a habit of adopting and befriending cats on the basis of 'least likely to be adopted by somebody else', not to mention spending a lot of time on the internet immersed in subjects related to that, casual and not, and correspondingly picked up more than a few methods and tricks to deal with those things. It wouldn't be out of line to assume that handling a traumatized Pokémon would fall somewhere between the two extremes.

"If we can familiarize the Houndour with someone," I continued. "Someone who it can learn to trust, maybe it'll start relaxing around humans in general. It'll take a lot of time and patience, but it's better than just waiting for..."

Waiting for what? Things to magically change overnight or for it to just die? Even if my words had failed, my thoughts still went to the worst option.

It's easy to watch the Professor think about things – just looking at his face gives me an idea of how he's approaching an idea, turning it over and peering at all the angles of it in his head. "It's not a bad idea," he eventually decides. "But there's a lot of room for it to go wrong, not to mention fail to work at all."

"I know." I know all too well.

A moment of awkward silence filled the laboratory.

"You want me to feed our guests?" I asked after a moment. It would be something to do, a physical task I could immerse myself in and forget the buzzing questions and what if's buzzing around in my head for a few minutes. It didn't hurt that the Houndoom pack had a similarly restless vibe to them as they paced the area just outside the lab.

Acacia grimaced. "While I'm not overly fond of training wild Pokémon to come to civilized areas to beg for food, it's better than them scaring off the locals while hunting. Go ahead."

The 'locals' the professor was worried about were more likely than not the local Pokémon rather than the human, though it would be better not to get the humans involved either. People were twitchy beings, particularly when it came to things that scared them, and Houndoom were scary by default. Most agreed that Houndour skirted the line between cute, cool, and properly scary, but a sufficiently pissed off Houndoom? No, nobody fucked with one of those, much less a pack of them.

Grabbing a large sack of Pokémon kibble and a stack of feeing bowls, I made my way through the lab, careful not to knock into anything before pushing the front door open with my foot. The heads of the Houndour's pack mates picked up as I approached, noses twitching at the sight of the big bag of kibble thrown over my shoulder.

"Figured y'all could use a little something-something for breakfast, yeah?" I said as I stepped around them, dodging nudges and puppy eyes – weird as hell on those hellish faces – as I worked. I dropped the various feeding bowls around in spaced intervals, trying to put enough distance between each to keep the Pokémon from crowding each other when food entered the equation. Smart or not, I'd never known a dog that didn't do their level best to beat their personal best for speed eating every time something even remotely food-ish came across their path.

As I finished up, the sound of a motorcycle approaching caught my attention. Large motor, if the lower pitch compared to my own ride was any indication – usually it was –, which usually meant a larger, heavier bike. From the smoothness of the sound, it was either relatively new or well-maintained and definitely not local – there weren't over many motorcycles in Chrysoprase and most of the ones we did have tended to be older models full of weird quirks and ad hoc solutions to the wear and tear picked up just by existing in Orre for any amount of time.

My Aura sense was more telling. There were two people on the bike, one of which I had never encountered before. The other was all too familiar. Eagun had finally arrived. Earlier than expected, admittedly, but there was no mistaking that Aura for anyone else.

As always, his Aura signature was a steady blue-white light, halfway between a slice of noonday sky and a strip of neon. Comforting in its stability, but humming with an underlying thread of caged lightning – a warning that, while it was safe enough to those who didn't mess with it, woe be to the idiot who decided to stick a fork into the socket for whatever reason.

Whoever he was travelling with had a very different Aura. It was blue, yes, but a darker heavier shade that didn't so much hum with energy than level a steady stare at anyone who looked at it. If I had to assign it a type, it'd probably Steel; hard, unyielding, stainless, razor-focused, and definitely not a thing to idle with. Likely not the best match to Eagun's relaxed lifestyle, but to his teaching style, which preached control, inside and out? That person would be the perfect replacement for a student who had a tendency to explode under pressure.

It also told me that it wasn't one of Eagun's grandkids. Even the more serious ones had an eccentricity that showed up in their Aura as a strip of blindingly intense color – Rui's was a medley of pink bubbles and sparks the last time I saw it and I had no reason to think that it'd changed by much – which meant that he'd reached out to somewhere else to get this student.

Interesting – but also none of my business, I decided, squelching down both my curiosity and the hot coal of irritation that had flared to life in my chest at the thought of being replaced. I had nothing to do with Eagun anymore and I shouldn't expect the world to revolve around me and my drama. Besides, it'd been three – four, maybe? – years since he'd dropped my apprenticeship. Of course he would have moved on to teach someone else. It wasn't like the old geezer was getting any younger, even if age hadn't slowed him down in any meaningful way, and the parts of Orre that were still wild and alive needed an Aura guardian.

As they finally pulled into view, I could turn my attention to something much more harmless – the motorcycle they'd come in on. It was a nice machine, bigger than mine by a fair margin, in no small part because it was a fundamentally different style than my off-and-on road messenger machine. It was a touring cycle; good for carrying multiple people over a long distance comfortably, but not exactly intended for off-road riding or sustained high speeds – and it didn't look like its owner had tried bucking that expectation yet, seeing as the glossy black and blue paint didn't seem to have a single chip of damage on it.

A kid from the city then? Or an import from another region? Blueish black hair wasn't anything remarkable, though the red eyes hiding just beneath that fringe and behind those glasses were. The outfit – black and blue leather riding chaps that faintly recalled a Lucario's pattern, especially with the ruff of sandy fur springing up around the collar of their vest – didn't seem overly urban to my eye, but I'd never been one to follow fashion trends all that closely. Still, the unified theme to the outfit didn't seem right for Orre. It was too polished and deliberate for a region that didn't have room for those things.

To be fair, Eagun didn't fit the general Orre aesthetic either. Between the long silvery hair – how he kept it that lustrous and sleek, I didn't know, but it was straight out of a shampoo commercial –, the lavender Jedi-esque robe, the unbuttoned Aloha print shirt under it, and the novelty Pikachu T-shirt under _that_ , the dread socks-and-sandals combination and half-kept beard verged on overkill by second-hand embarrassment… yet, somehow it worked for him. Likely because I knew how his particular brand of eccentricity worked – he wasn't too far off of the archetype of the aging hippie in the first place and familiarity simply personalized the sketch from there. Bad with technology, worse with people – despite the insight to emotional states Aura naturally provided –, over fond of natural cures and organic diets, and such a natural hand with Electric-types that he made a secondary career of breeding the various types of Electric Mice.

I'd always estimated him to be in his sixties, though I'd never considered that answer anything better than a vague guess – Aura training lent itself to physical health and durability and, when combined with Eagun's relatively sedate lifestyle and clean living, he could have easily been in his eighties without me being any the wiser. If the silky hair was part of that – seriously, how was he doing that with a semi-hermit's resources –, I had a feeling it was part of the postgraduate package I'd never have.

One thing I did know for sure was that, if this was a movie, the part of Eagun would be filled by Mark Hamill playing the part of a knock-off Luke with more than a few character reference taken from Obi-Wan and, just maybe, Qui-Gon Jinn just for the sake of rounding out the Jedi Master triangle of influence.

As they finally parked and dismounted, the urge to be anywhere but there rose again. There was no way that this was going to be a pleasant encounter, even if it somehow managed to be painless. There were too many bad memories, too much drama for it to be anything but awkward.

Heading towards the lab, Eagun paused awkwardly, a half second hanging in suspense before he lifted a hand in half-hearted salute. "Yo."

Yo.

That's the best he could come up with? A greeting three decades too young for the rest of him?

"The professor's inside," I said, jerking my head towards the lab before I started kicking myself for the gesture. Too harsh, too combative. Should have just left it at spoken words instead. Well, I'd known our interactions were going to be awkward and uncomfortable. The best I could hope for was the situation not degrading past that.

Swallowing down the impulse to yell – the answers to the questions of 'at who' and 'with what words' were, as usual, MIA –, I turned my attention back to the Fire-type Pokemon milling around the dirt road cul-de-sac that took up the space in front of Professor Acacia's lab. Some of them were still interested in the food, but the rest seemed distracted by the human drama playing out in front of them.

Well, I decided as one bumped its head against my thigh, it was better than having to be in the lab right now.

* * *

As he walked further into Gregory's lab, Eagun Logos tried to shove the theoretical conversations with Delaine he'd been running through his head for the last day to the side in favor of doing something useful. There was nothing he could say to her, no words or explanations that wouldn't end up causing trouble again. That bridge had been burnt until nothing but a few scant pieces of charcoal remained. Theoretically, it could be rebuilt, but it would be a long and arduous task that could go wrong at almost every turn. It was easier to just leave it lie and hope that Sorcha didn't attempt to bulldoze the wreckage in an attempt to pull a clearer villain from them.

Instead, he focused on the now. There was an emergency with a Pokémon that required his knowledge of Aura, rather than his more practical skills, a situation that was apparently so dire that Gregory had told him to get there as soon as possible rather than just send all the necessities to his – and his wife's, because Eagun had a habit of accidentally deleting the things that he needed to read – emails.

Gregory didn't like second opinions and he hated dealing with people in a position of authority over him, regardless of if that authority came from a management position or simply having more expertise in a subject. Combining that knowledge of the man's character with his request, which was almost polite in its delivery and wording compared to their usual interactions, and there was enough to know that it was something that wasn't answered by anything as easy as cross-referencing text books or searching through old scientific journals.

As if to confirm the Aura guardian's suspicions, Gregory's entire manner was one of someone intensely involved in a serious situation. His Aura painted the situation more clearly – internal conflict was swirling the Pokémon's ordinarily spiky green presence from something similar to his namesake tree to a cactus; bristling with gnawing anxious tension and stabbing out in every possible direction instead of saving its focus for the points it wanted to reinforce.

And when Eagun shifted his focus to the observation room Gregory was looking at, he understood exactly why the Pokémon professor felt that way.

The Pokémon in there was twisted almost past the point of recognition. Not physically – there was no mistaking it for anything other than a young Houndour once one looked through the glass portion of the door – but emotionally, it was barely recognizable as sentient.

Only a handful of times had Eagun ever seen that before, and it was always the mark of torture – though how intentional that torture had been was always variable. Anything from an unnatural capture method to extreme chronic pain from an ill-treated injury could twist a Pokémon into something darker and more dangerous than any naturally occurring creature. This one was only remarkable in that – unlike the cases Eagun had seen – the Pokémon wasn't anything special. Legendaries, Semi-Legendaries, and Mythic Pokémon had the endurance to live through that sort of pain, the likes of which would destroy less powerful Pokémon completely. A Houndour that couldn't be more than a year old squarely fell into the last category.

Still. With the right pressure applied over the right amount of time, anything was possible. Pit fighting was his best answer – trainers that weren't satisfied with ordinary battles could do unspeakable things to a Pokémon in the quest for their next fix of blood and violence and, with Orre's limited police force, it was a depressingly common form of 'entertainment'. Another was merely a reiteration of the same – a trainer dissatisfied with their Pokémon's battling ability putting it through hellish training until all it knew was how to fight, only to find it uncontrollable and throw it away as the consequences for that treatment became clear.

"So?" Gregory asked. "What do you make of it?"

There was a lot to make of it, but all of it was supposition. The hard facts were few and not all that enlightening – the Pokémon was discovered in the badlands in a hole in a near feral state of aggression, surrounded by a pack of Houndoom and Houndour, with the remains of a Pokéball nearby. That was enough to get a sense of a narrative, but without any means of tracking where the Pokémon may have come from… no, there was only theories to be spun on the finer details beyond what logic could be applied.

Someone had abused the Houndour, twisted its personality and Aura to dark malevolence. Something about that behavior then struck that person – or perhaps a different trainer, in the event of an exchange – so wrong that their only answer to the problem was to get rid of it, driving it out into the no man's land far from any human civilization and dumping it in a situation that would almost certainly end in death. It was only a matter of luck that had seen Delaine stumble across it in time to save its life.

But…

"My impression is that it is a terrible case of abuse and abandonment, but if that was the case, you wouldn't have called me for my take on the situation," Eagun said before casting a sidelong look at his old friend. "Which means that you suspect differently."

Gregory shifted in place, rearranging the angle of his limbs to take the weight off one of his ankles. One of the unfortunate aspects of getting older – all that wear and tear brushed to the side in youth coming back with a vengeance once the body slowed down. "Delaine heard a rumor somewhere about someone doing this on purpose. Well," the professor said, correcting himself, "several someones. A Team."

The capital letters were perfectly audible. "You suspect Snagem?"

It was a leap from the commonly understood activities of the group, though not out of line – stealing Pokémon was usually connected to other activities, though Eagun's suspicions had always leaned towards trafficking rather than pit fighting.

"No. A different Team, though she painted a pretty clear connection between the two," Gregory said, turning around to pace. "Have you ever heard of a Team Cipher?"

The name sent an inexplicable chill down the Aura guardian's spine. "I can't say that I have."

Gregory Acacia shook his head before resuming his pacing. "Well, Delaine says that there are a few whispers online about the group, none of them good. That they sell 'special' Pokémon that are supposed to be bred for battle and stronger than others of the same species is just the one that I've been able to find on my own since she mentioned it – apparently she has enough information to know that they get at least part of their stock from Snagem, that they're the ones feeding Snagem resources, and that they have some darker purpose behind it all with reach and resources to match."

"It… it's a case of terrible abuse, certainly, and that is an… interesting selection of facts," Eagun said weakly. "But I can't see any reason to start spinning it into some sort of conspiracy theory –"

The Houndour abruptly rushed at the door, its mutilated Aura flaring around it as it tried to tackle its way through the plexiglass. It bounced off without getting through, though the crack left in the wake of the attack was startling. Not just because the attack had come from nowhere, but the fact that it had managed to do that much damage.

Any self-respecting Pokémon lab was built to withstand all but the most powerful forces the average Pokémon could bring to bear and something as simple as a Tackle shouldn't have left a mark. Yet there that mark was, spiderwebbed across the observation window as plain as the clouds in the sky.

"Care to reevaluate your opinion?" Gregory asked dryly as he leaned on his staff, hands curled around the crook in a way that was almost casual. "Because between that little display, what Delaine's told me, and the supervillain fuckery Team Rocket has been inflicting on Kanto, I'm not exactly finding a lot of reasons to throw away my little tinfoil cap just yet."

* * *

Waiting had never been one of my strong suits, particularly when it was for news that could either be very good or very bad. That empty space was all too easy to fill with horrible hypotheticals and worrisome what ifs when there wasn't anything else to do, and even when a distraction was at hand, that chittering voice of creeping uncertainty was already crawling around the edges of my thoughts, whispering about all the worst case scenarios that could be happening outside of my knowledge.

I could almost imagine it hanging around where I was working on my motorcycle, bouncing around on knobby little legs as it chewed on its fingers. I knew it was a perfectly imaginary structure, but that's how that little voice of internalized poison felt – like a little monster pulled out of the worst parts of my own self and given shape by every insult and putdown I'd ever received in my life. It bit and it clawed at my emotions whenever there wasn't anyone on the outside taking care of the job and always second guessing any good things that came my way.

Right now, its favorite subject was the Shadow Pokémon being studied in the lab.

'Eagun doesn't like dangerous, unpredictable creatures, you know,' it whispered with a perverse joy, eyes wide as they searched my face for a reaction. 'You're living proof of that, you psychotic little beasty. What do you think that he's going to do with a Pokémon that can't be pushed away somewhere where it can safely be forgotten?'

'He's not the violent type.'

No, Eagun preferred talking to action. Whether that talking took the form of reasoned arguments or old fables with simplistic aesops – not that such a little detail would stop me from enjoying the stories anyway –, violence was almost always his last resort. Violence with the intention of killing? Never, unless I had vastly underestimated the man.

'No, that's you. The rotten little beasty with nobody to turn to. Kicking, clawing, and biting the moment they put you in with the other children, too feral to be a human and too smart to be an animal. But there's ways to get rid of things without being violent. You know that.' Its smile widened. 'All you have to do is give a beasty a bit of rope and the right _push_.'

I shoved the imp away with a hard mental refusal as I focused harder on the guts of my motorcycle. The cylinders could use a little cleaning, but the bolts were all securely in place and there weren't any hidden areas of rust I could find. The anti-gravity systems, however, needed a slight bit of reworking and the tires would likely need to be replaced in a month or so – nothing surprising, given the age of my motorcycle and how rough Orre's weather could be on equipment. The sand in particular was a nasty part of it – even a few grains inserting themselves into the wrong space could lead to a potential short in the anti-grav modules and the mere act of crossing any patch of sand served to smooth the tread off of tires. After that, there was rust and dry damage to worry about, not to speak of what the sun could do…

Uncertainty started creeping in as I searched for something to fix only to come up empty. What if Eagun did decide that the Houndour was a lost cause? Was I in a position to try to save it? Would I even be allowed to try? I didn't like the idea of just… letting it die, even without the knowledge that putting that kind of precedent in place was going to lead to more misery for more Pokémon down the road. But what could I do to convince them? Tell the truth? Hah. Yes, telling someone that you knew how to resolve a situation because you saw this exact situation in a video game once would _definitely_ work.

So that left me with doing what I could and keeping my mouth shut about everything else. It was bad enough that I couldn't bring myself to connect with the people that were supposed to be my family in this life, but the secrets? Oh, I could keep a secret – especially when nobody cared enough to ask –, but there was always the chance that the guilt would strangle me alive somewhere down the line, but any tease of history, any blatant foreknowledge, any slip of anything that didn't fit with what I was supposed to be wasn't allowed.

Besides, I didn't like the idea of hurting anyone with that. My first life was a hard and unpleasant ordeal from beginning to end and to anyone who actually managed to get emotionally invested in me, listening to even the most basic account of it would just be a study in heartache. Just better not so say anything at all.

"What is _wrong_ with you?"

I looked up. Eagun's new apprentice was staring at me with a strange look in – her? His? – their eyes, somewhere between disgust and shock without properly deserving the designation of 'horror'. In those red eyes, it was a particularly eerie look, an impression not helped by the fact that they had managed to sneak up on me without my noticing.

I raised an eyebrow. "Like in general or do you have a specific thing in mind?"

"Your Aura. It's…"

"Fucked?" No surprises there, what with the relationship between Aura and emotions and what that would mean for someone with PTSD combined with a whole host of other emotional issues. The fact that I couldn't really see my own Aura could only leave me guessing as to what it might look like… and what the before and after might look like to another Aura user would see standing on the outside.

They looked to the side with a slightly uncomfortable – guilt? – expression. "…not the word I would have chosen, but yes."

I sighed as I set down my screwdriver. "Look, honestly this is the kind of discussion you need to be like a Level 7 Friend to access and I don't even know your fucking name, but I have… anger issues combined with a kinda weird sense of personal justice. Also, issues in general. I'm kind of a mess."

 _Kind of._ Hah. What an understatement.

"What kind of anger issues?"

And now we were back to prying again. "The kind where if you can actually manage to get me mad – and let me tell you, I'm dysfunctional enough where that's a minefield of a situation if you don't know my buttons –, there's an oh-so-very slim chance that I might just lose my shit and beat you half to death."

They took a slightly defensive step back into a combat stance. Really? Was my reputation really that shady? Or was my tone just that threatening?

"Relax. It takes a lot more than being slightly obnoxious to piss me off, kid," I said, rolling my eyes as I went back to poking the insides of my motorcycle. Wasn't that much to work on at the moment, so I guessed it would just be better to pack up my toolbox and move onto some other task. "Anyway, if Eagun didn't want to tell you the tale, I don't blame him. Wasn't the best situation all around and, if neither of us know how to address the history between us –" Other than with a 'yo', of course. "– then the best we can do is attempt to be civil about it."

There. That was the nice, adult way to handle things with a little hint to the kid on how to make some strides towards personal maturity as well. Now, hopefully that would be the end of the social interaction, because otherwise I was about to start screaming or something a lot worse.

I didn't do well with interrogations. Once – Dad, it was only ever dad – a person started asking pointed questions with that unimpressed and suspicious look, things only would get worse. The questions would get sharper and more aggressive until they became nothing more than weapons as stern words would become bellowing that threatened to knock down walls and gestures went from simple waves of the hand to fists threatening to descend like those of an angry god. And after he set up the script, I couldn't help but react to it in the same way, even if the person playing the other half wasn't there to hurt.

I'd cringe, I'd cry, I'd scream… or I'd go crazy and start fighting. Biting, scratching, kicking... on one occasion when I'd been six or seven years old, the aftermath had seen me paying too much attention to the knife block in the kitchen, especially when my dad ended up bedbound with the flu.

It was the best – and only, until I stopped being profitable and he kicked me out – chance I would ever get at being free of him, but that fear was already tattooed into my bones by that point. 'He's bigger than you,' it read in stark blue-black that brooked no argument. 'Stronger than you. And the more you do to him, the worse he'll do to you. He'll break you into pieces and eat up anything that's left over.'

In the end, I'd left the knives alone. But the thought had been there, and I knew that that part of me hadn't improved with age. No, it had only gotten worse, between the PTSD from my father and the PTSD from school, becoming something that was a near twin for the Shadow Pokémon Professor Acacia was studying in the lab. Escaping the situation had… helped – certainly it had reduced the building pressure to explode into violence – but there was always a sense of being tangled up inside. Like making one wrong move would lead to everything falling apart and not in a harmless sort of way…

The sound of a door opening broke my thoughts away from musing on my history. So the adults were finished talking. Good. Now we could move onto something else.

"You were right, Delaine," Professor Acacia said. "That Pokémon is in an altered state of being."

Glad to see that we've confirmed the obvious. "What's the next step then?"

"I'll contact Sherles and from there, he'll get in contact with the International Police," Eagun said, folding his arms across his chest. "They'll begin investigating this Team Cipher and work in dismantling their organization."

That was it? Throw everything we knew at the police and hope it gets done? The idea alone made my blood pressure spike. "And how long will that take? Months? Years?"

They weren't some upstart gang. They had Legendary Pokémon at their disposal, they had two to three major population centers in Orre under their complete control, and they had at least one secret laboratory in the region right now. They had a command hierarchy and a grip on Orre that ran down into its lowest depths.

I could have said all those things, but there was no way anyone would believe me. Not without other witnesses or evidence they could actually touch.

"I know that inaction frustrates you," Eagun said in what was likely intended to be a placating tone. For me, it simply rankled my already raw temper. "But there's a process to this. A person cannot run around executing vigilante justice without regard for the law."

"What law?" I finally snapped. "This is Orre! We can count the number of police we have in the entire region on two hands and around half of them are complete idiots while the rest are busy being overworked and underpaid! Do you think that they're going to add some hidden conspiracy to their plate when they don't even have the resources to hunt down Team Snagem, a team that doesn't even have thirty members? The only law we have is what we lay down ourselves, because nobody else in the world cares about us!"

"And what do you suggest we do then?" I bit down my immediate reply, but Eagun seemed to know what I'd been about to say anyway. "No, you can't go around just taking Pokémon from people. Not without a better reason than 'this Pokémon will be better with me'. In a few cases, that might be true, but that doesn't mean that you're the one who gets to decide that."

But I can see which ones need the help. For once, I can do something to stop it.

Before I could say anything else, the sound of a default alarm tone rang out from Eagun's person, leaving the Aura guardian to rapidly pat down all the usual pocket locations before finally locating the object of his search – a practically pristine PDA.

More than likely a gift from one of his kids or grandkids… or maybe even his wife. Bella had always been good at keeping up with the times, even as her husband tried and failed to understand anything more complicated than a microwave. Probably had thought that the prospect of being able to keep up long distance contact with family would encourage the old coot to actually learn how to use the thing.

Eagun fiddled with his PDA for a moment before giving up and passing it over to his apprentice, who flipped it open and pulled up the correct function within the same motion. They looked over the text quickly before closing the PDA back up. "It's from Bella. We need to pick up Rui from the Unova border crossing."

"She took the overland route?" Barely anyone came that way, usually because they couldn't stand traveling by boat or plane for whatever reason or because they liked the idea of scenic routes. Most of the latter category changed their minds afterwards, because not only was the mountain route extremely rough going, the first sight that would greet a weary traveler once they cleared that last gate would be a sea of sand impossible to cross on foot or bicycle.

There were transport services, sure, but they were irregular things on the level of Uber and justifiably pricy, considering how out of the way the location was. Most people just settled for calling a family member or friend and even then it was only with the promise of gas money and eternal gratitude coming right on the tail of that request.

"Yes," Eagun said. "We discussed it when she left to take her journey in Unova – she was intent on returning home that way. Sorcha and I were planning on picking her up when the call came through."

"On that bike?" I asked incredulously before wishing I could take the words back.

'Sorcha' immediately bristled. "What's wrong with it?"

What's _wrong_ with it? Now I knew this kid wasn't local for sure. "First off, you don't have an anti-grav kit!" I said, pointing at the machine and its lack of modifications. "You'd get bogged down in the sand five minutes into the desert without one, especially with a bike in that weight class. And even without that, what was even was the plan for picking Rui up? You don't have a sidecar and I know that you couldn't fit three people on this machine even with the aid of anti-grav – it'd screw up the weight distribution and put everyone in danger." It'd be a different story if it was a car, but again, the problem of no anti-gravity kit popped up again – without one, they would either have to take an extremely out of the way detour or take the very high risk being trapped in the desert by the weight of their own vehicle.

Half of this, I could blame on the owner of the bike – foreigners almost never knew the rules of surviving Orre without being told –, but the rest of the blame fell on Eagun. The old man was a lifelong resident and explorer of this fucking sandpit of a region, he should have figured out the rules for survival by now, his ridiculous levels of incompetence with technology be damned.

"So, what? Are you volunteering to help out? After that little blow up?" Sorcha scoffed. "Are you sure you don't just want the chance to get back at Eagun."

Now, after a half hour of pushing my buttons, the little shit had actually hit on something that would cause a reaction.

I closed the space between us in a flash, getting close enough to the little shit's face that they were forced to step back with every stab I took at them with my pointer finger. "Fuck you. I don't waste my time 'getting back' at people, especially not at the expense of –" what, a family member? A friend? A passing acquaintance? What was I to Rui anyway? "– those who aren't involved in whatever shitshow has top billing this week. We already had this conversation, kid, and it's called 'being a fucking adult', so shut your mouth and use that lint collector between your ears you call a brain for its intended purpose."

As Eagun opened his mouth to – what? Scold? He should have done that back when it would have meant something – say something, I rounded on him. "And you. You better make time to put 'basic fucking maturity' in your teaching curriculum somewhere, because I'm getting the feeling that the issue you've been having with your students isn't as much an unavoidable issue as it is a lack of critical thinking skills. I'll admit I have my flaws – temper, impatience, violent behavior, general approach to life –, but you can't put this little prick's," here I gave Sorcha a shove, "problems on me."

I stepped back, allowing the hot coal of my anger to cool down to something livable. "Now," I said in the wake of that stunned silence I'd just caused. "I'm going to go get Rui. You can stay here or go home. Do whatever the hell you want to do. I don't care. But I am not letting you go out in the fucking desert with a motorcycle completely and utterly unequipped for that environment, regardless of if I dislike you or not. Rui will be home in Agate Village tomorrow, unless something world shattering happens in between here and the Outskirt Stand. Bella or the Professor can call me for updates – I don't want to speak to either of you until I've had _plenty_ of time to cool off."

I turned my attention over to Professor Acacia. Unlike the others, he didn't look particularly surprised by the outburst, though there was a certain stoniness in his expression that kept that absence of reaction from being a comfort.

"Will the Houndour be alright until I get back?" I asked.

"It should – I think I'll put it into the Box system to stretch out our time frame. A bit of an unorthodox use of the technology, but it'll work. You want to work with it?"

Not a lost cause. "I would like to try, if you'll grant me the chance."

"Of course I will. Now get going."

One of the knots in my heart unclenched as I nodded and turned back to my motorcycle. Maybe this life would be okay, I thought, as I drove east into the desert, the sun at my back as the miles flew by beneath my feet.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated 6/20/2018
> 
> This edit is beginning to become something of a rewrite, but hopefully the result isn't too bad. The next few chapters are where I begin to alter the flow of events more (smoothing things out, reducing the amount of back and forth between locations, etc), so it'll be a while before they're ready to be shared.
> 
> According to the general timeline of the Pokémon games, Gen I (via the Fire Red / Leaf Green remakes) and III (and, correspondingly, ORAS) take place during the same time frame as Pokémon Colosseum, so there really isn't a precedent for 'meddling kid disassembles evil team on lonesome'. You could probably also use that as a reason in-universe why Orre didn't get any international (interregional?) attention, because Team Magma/Aqua are a lot less subtle than Team Rocket or Cipher and would have ended up attracting the lion's (Pyroar's?) share of attention.
> 
> Hopefully this rewrite improves the interactions between characters – with Eagun being a little less hostile while Delaine comes across as being a 'difficult' person to like without access to her internal commentary. A little bit more world-building thrown in, a little more connectivity between the chapters… and a little more insight into Delaine's emotional and mental state + personal history. I believe I've already spelled out what her issues are, but PTSD and Complex PTSD are slightly different beasts and she has as much of the latter as the former. Complex PTSD comes from traumatic situations that last 3+ months and can manifests a number of unorthodox triggers – one of my personal ones is a person setting down containers (like a jug of milk) hard, as my step-mother would do that whenever she was angry (usually with me), which was usually the first warning I'd get before something worse and less predictable happened. Certain perfumes or even specific songs can serve as triggers as well - they aren't always easy to predict, though a lot of the general ones can be foreseen and avoided without much hullabaloo (unless assholes who think making other people uncomfortable is funny are involved).
> 
> Anyway, feel free to ask any questions in the comments / review section. I will either answer them in-story or in the next Author's Notes. Reviews, criticisms, and commentary are, as always, welcome.


	5. Explosion

Team Snagem's headquarters were way outside of the usual paths of modern civilization, which made it both convenient and very much _not_ at the same time.

It was convenient because the odds that someone would stumble across it on their own were extremely low. It was convenient because anyone that might have tried to mount a pursuit after any fleeing grunts would get caught up in the desert long before they got even close to the slot canyon that hid the base itself from sight. It was convenient because it was a repurposed ruin that had only the bare necessities to make it livable to modern people.

To someone who very much wanted to be anywhere else, the location was very inconvenient.

Laying across the wide window ledge on the top floor of Team Snagem's HQ, water canteen in hand and one leg swaying in the breeze, Wes considered the tiny slice of desert that was visible through the tight walls of Eclo Canyon.

He'd never liked the desert. Never liked the heat, never liked the sun, never liked the dryness.

The openness was fine. It was an opportunity to take his cobbled together beast of a motorcycle to its top speed without any repercussions from geography or law, but that same emptiness and lack of support to hold up the sky was unnerving to a person that grew up under a ceiling of stone.

Of course, he added to the thought as he tossed back another swallow of sweet mineral water, the Under hadn't exactly been his favorite place either. It was too dark, too cold, and too damp to ever count as comfortable and the people didn't make up for the lack of inviting geography either. It was a nest of vipers with only one point of entry or escape, a hellhole where the only things a person could trust were his own Pokémon and old man Makan.

Wes shoved the discomfort of memory away. The old man was likely dead by now or had adopted some other stray to grandfather. Wes wasn't interested in going back to the Under to find out for sure.

As if detecting his discomfort, his Espeon rubbed his face against his uncovered arm and he returned the gesture, which quickly turned into a group cuddle session as his Umbreon joined the party. Zener and Chaya were his closest friends and partners, ever since he'd found the pair as shivering Eevees locked up in a backroom breeder's storage shed.

They'd been the first Pokémon he ever stole and he hadn't looked back on that decision with any shame. It had been the right thing to do.

As for everything after that? No, there was no way to look back on Wes's life and say that every action had been the right one, even if he really had needed the money. He'd stolen Pokémon from every sort of trainer – good ones, bad ones, old ones, and new ones, even though he'd always drawn the line at the really young kids. Even with that small exception, he wasn't claiming sainthood. Really, the only difference between him and any other grunt on the Team was ability and the willingness to do something really crazy when the chips were down.

Like buy up a few kilos of mining explosive with a detonator to match.

Wes held up the detonator against that tiny sliver of visible desert. The cheap plastic and metal casing was slightly scuffed from age, which was completely justified considering the thing could be anywhere from thirty to fifty years old, and the antennae gave it a maximum reliable range of a hundred yards, though the guy who sold it to him said that he wouldn't trust that number too much.

Still, the man had taken care to add to his spiel, it absolutely would work as advertised and, provided that Wes stay far enough out of range not to get caught in the blast zone, he'd be satisfied with the bang he got for his buck.

The explosives were hidden around the base in whatever nooks and crannies Wes was sure weren't liable to be searched any time soon that were also close enough to the important stuff that his dramatic exit would be a major blow to the Team rather than a minor annoyance. Once he had taken everything that he could from the place, he'd run for it, setting off the explosives once he was clear of the building.

Ideally, everyone else would be as well because, while Wes had tried to plant the explosives in out of the way spots – like in the Pokéball shaped façade on the outside of the building just under his windowsill seat –, they were still fairly powerful mining explosives shoved into a human structure that hadn't been built for that kind of abuse.

Standing up, Wes moved into the building, Zener and Chaya padding silently at his heels. There were still a few objectives that he needed to complete and, seeing as today was dedicated to adding a little sabotage to his criminal resume, why not go that extra mile to ruin Team Snagem completely?

Maybe a year of two back, the idea of bringing Snagem down wouldn't have occurred to Wes. While it should never be said that Gonza was _gentle_ man, he did pay a fair cut for work done and offered room and board to his underlings for free. It was just that the 'work' had recently revealed itself to be a lot worse than simple stealing.

The hallways, like Wes had expected, were empty. Today was one of the regularly scheduled status report sessions / teamwork meetings, which meant that every member of the gang – save Wes, though he hadn't taken care to place his RSVP – would be crammed into Gonzap's dinky little conference room, leaving one soon to be ex-member with easy access to the portable Snag Machine.

Well, easy-ish.

While the storage room itself didn't have a lock, there was another protection that made that initial absence a moot point – a set of metal bars with a sliding door split the room in half, the lights and obvious wires attached to the lock making it plain that if someone tried to steal it, everyone on based would be very aware of what that person was trying very, very quickly.

Finishing up the easier task of grabbing every useable item in the room and shoving them into the gym bag he'd brought for that express purpose – Wes wouldn't be wanting for Potions or Status cures for weeks, if not months –, he studied the one barrier between him and his ultimate goal.

It was a tricky set up. Two keys were needed to open the door – one physical key and one key card. The physical key opened the door while the key card kept the alarm from going off. While a person could theoretically steal one, without the other they were little better than useless.

Wes had exactly one of the keys – the one that would open the door. Which left dealing with the alarm.

With the right kind of equipment or Pokémon, Wes wouldn't have to deal with that lock or the alarm. Just saw right through those bars or dig around through the surrounding rock to make an entirely new door. But he didn't have those things, which left taking a gamble on a workaround that might not even work.

Wes pulled the rare metal magnet out of his pocket and began bouncing it up and down in his hand. These things were supposed to be strong and he knew that magnets screwed with computers, so the logic that a more powerful magnet might be able to screw a security system up enough that it wouldn't sound seemed to work. Still, he didn't know enough about computers, magnets, or this security system to have full confidence in his plan.

"Zener," he decided. "Take the bag and go wait outside with the bike. Start it up when you see us come running."

The Psychic-type nodded before slipping the carrying strap of the gym bag around his neck and slinking off into the hall. After a moment of listening and still hearing nothing, Wes lifted the magnet to the electronic half of the lock. It jumped out of his hand to stick to the casing as it – hopefully – scrambled the computer inside.

Wes took a deep breath. Alright. He had maybe five minutes at most before Gonza got fed up with his absence and went looking for him himself, which meant that he needed to get this job done now. He shoved the key into the keyhole and gave it a turn.

Nothing. Blessed silence. His plan to disable the alarm had worked perfectly.

Finally relaxing, Wes pushed the door open… and immediately panicked when the klaxons and flashing lights started going off.

Fucking. Joy.

He grabbed the Snag Machine off of its stand, tucking it under his arm as he ran out of the room and through the maze of hallways that made up Team Snagem's base, Chaya right beside him the whole way. A moment's glance to the side let Wes get one last picture of Gonza looming in a doorway, his boss's – well, definitely ex-boss now – face transforming into the very image of towering rage in the tenth of a second.

Yep, Wes definitely wasn't going to stick around to ask about his pension.

Finally clearing the last door to the outside, Wes put his remaining energy into running faster as he saw Zener sitting in the passenger car of his motorcycle, the engine already rumbling and ready to go.

Excellent. That meant that there was probably a chance to escape the human Primeape on his heels that was intent on crushing his skull into powder.

Throwing the Snag Machine into the foot well of the sidecar to join the bag he'd handed off to Zener earlier, Wes mounted his monster of a motorcycle and – as soon as Chara was securely seated next to his brother – gunned the accelerator, kicking up a wave of sand that brought his pursuers up short.

They were free. Which meant it was a perfect time for fireworks.

Wes pulled the detonator free of his pocket and clicked the button.

At first, there was nothing, but before Wes could began to curse the dud, an explosion rang out, heralding a quick succession of destructive bursts. The vibrations rattled all of Eclo Canyon, sending shards of stone falling from the cliffs as Snagem's hideout progressed from rattling to shattering in the face of the irresistible forces tearing apart its insides – to say nothing of the echo, which deafened all but the sound of rumbling rock.

As Wes's bike burst out of the canyon and into the open desert, the great noise finally calmed down enough for him to hear the distant sound of someone screaming – namely, that of Gonza slapping every swear he could apply to Wes into a single blue streak that chased the boy who had, at least until five minutes ago, his best agent for the better part of four years.

Wes himself couldn't quite bring himself to care because, for once, the open blue skies over the Orre desert didn't seem so intimidating.

Rather, they seemed to promise a brighter future.

* * *

Rui Logos was waiting. There wasn't much else to do at the Orre-Unova border crossing, unless a person had a Flying-type trained to carry humans. The Orre desert made sure of that – it was as much a barrier as any mountain range, despite its deceptive flatness.

The wait wasn't made that much easier by the border crossing gate itself either – it was a barebones operation at the top of a long winding staircase cut into a cliff, kept up to the most minimal standards Unovan rest stops were held to. A couple of vending machines and a wall-mounted TV repeating the news were practically the only things in the place between the chairs bolted to the floor and the attendant that looked like they'd rather be anywhere else and that just covered the bare essentials… which was why she was standing outside, watching the desert shift and shimmer under the heat of the afternoon sun.

It was a boring business, waiting, and it could have been avoided by returning to Orre by plane or ship, but Rui had wanted to take the land route, both to stretch out her two year journey for a few more days and for the satisfaction of returning home under her own power… well, for a given value of home. She wouldn't want to try attempting to walk all the way back to Agate Village from here.

That's why she was waiting – for the ride that would carry her home.

Grandma Bella had sent her a couple of messages – the first had been a simple reply to Rui's 'I'm at the crossing' but the second was more detailed.

It had roughly read that there had been a change of plans and that Grandpa and his student weren't going to be the ones picking her up, but someone else in the family and that she shouldn't get antsy and wander off.

Rui didn't plan on it, instead opting to fill the minutes with idle thought. Who would be coming then, if not Grandpa Eagun and his apprentice? One of her cousins? Maybe an aunt or an uncle? Not many people in Agate Village had vehicles of their own and Rui could count on one hand how many of those were related to her. A few people had come to and went from the gate today, but she didn't recognize any of them or their Aura's, so the left more waiting.

– on second thought did Rui even know who Grandpa's current apprentice was? Was it someone new, one of her cousins, or had Grandpa Eagun finally made up with Delaine? The last felt a little unlikely, but it wasn't like her family had kept her up to date on Orre current events through email. The most she usually got was stuff like 'your brother Mica ate some moss off of the temple ruins and had to have three spoons of caster oil poured down his throat' or 'Eden got their starter today and caused an electrical fire' that Rui would respond with an 'ew' or an 'aw' as necessary before going into a vague sketch of her own day.

Ugh. Maybe she should have just gone to Castelia or Driftveil – heck, maybe even Virbank – and bought a ticket for a ship coming to Orre. At least then she wouldn't have to spend hours 'admiring' the desert until her ride arrived.

"This is lame," Rui declared to the sands as she twisted a finger through one of her pigtails.

"Your face is lame."

Rui's squeak of surprise quickly turned into an excited squeal as she recognized the face smirking up at her from the concrete staircase leading down to the desert. "Delaine!" she yelled as she launched herself at the other girl, sending them both spinning before Delaine brought them to a stop.

"What is it with people and jumping on me lately? You'd swear my name was Trampoline," the older girl joked as she set Rui back down on the ground and adjusted the brim of her cap. Her hair was longer than Rui remembered, the dark brown mane fighting to escape the hat holding it down, and there was a scar on her chin that hadn't been there before but that smile was exactly as she remembered. "So, how was Unova? Catch anything _legendary_?"

"Ha! No. It was busy though. You wouldn't believe how many people live there, it's crazy," Rui replied, brushing her fringe back out of her eyes. She needed to start clipping it in place – and probably should have started doing that a few months ago. "And there are Pokémon everywhere, hundreds more than you'd ever see here in Orre. Did you know that there's a Grass-type that changes its appearance with the seasons?"

"Deerling and Sawsbuck," Delaine replied instantly before tilting her head to the side. "Run into the Swords of Justice?"

"Who?"

"Unovan Legendaries. Cobalion, Virizion, and Terrakion. Oh, and Keldeo," she added almost as an afterthought. "Though that one's more of a trainee than a proper member of the group. Would suit you the best, what with the cutesiness and all that."

Rui slapped Delaine's arm. "Delaine, you know I'm not going to run into any Legendary Pokémon! They're crazy rare!"

"Doesn't mean that you couldn't catch a glimpse," Delaine replied with a shrug as she turned to walk down the stairs. "I mean, _someone_ had to if you can read about them today."

Rui supposed that made sense. Her grandfather had seen at least five Legendary Pokémon in his life, but almost all of his stories were of distant glimpses. The fact that his work as both an Aura guardian and an archeologist took him into remote areas probably didn't hurt the odds of running into them either.

But she was more concerned with something other than rare Pokémon.

Delaine's Aura was… different. Almost been unrecognizable until Rui had been able to recognize the person behind it. The difference might not have been specifically _bad_ , but… something about it was _wrong_. Before, Delaine's Aura had been like an ember, red and gold in equal measures that sparked brighter when she was excited or angry, but always warm. Now, that gold had faded and even turned black in some places while the red had turned towards a colder hue. The end result was an Aura that, while still warm, was now the kind of warm that felt half-hearted and dangerous in equal measures, like a coal that looked burnt out but was still hot enough to leave burns on any person unwary enough to grab it with their bare hands.

"Are you doing okay?" Rui asked.

Delaine's head swiveled around to look at her, immediate flash of concern – panic? – covered up by a mask of polite confusion almost immediately. "Uh, yeah? Why?"

Rui shrugged in a manner that she hoped would come off as casual as she caught up with the older girl. "Well, I haven't seen you in forever and there was that blowup with Grandpa. I was just wondering."

Delaine paused for a moment, her Aura stilling in a way that made Rui's stomach clench. Then, she started moving again. "No, I've been doing alright," she said, eyes focusing on some imaginary point past the horizon. "Got a part time job to help my mom with expenses and keep busy, been working on my tech skills – and, ah, I got a new Pokémon recently."

"Really?"

"Yeah, a Noibat. Dragon/Flying-type. They're from Kalos. I found mine in a cave just outside of Chrysoprase when I was doing some work at our wind plant. Professor Acacia figures she got blown down by a storm and holed up in there for safety." She fumbled around one of the pockets on her cargo pants for a moment before producing a Pokédex, which she fiddled with for a moment before passing it over. "Here."

The featured Pokémon was a bit like a Swoobat, between the ears and the fluff, but there was a distinct 'dragon' flavor to its looks. The big yellow eyes and the fangs were a bit intimidating, but at the same time, absolutely charming. The fact that it was all various shades of the same purplish-pink didn't hurt the last at all.

"It's adorable!" she cooed.

"She is." Delaine smiled as she tucked her Pokédex back into the pocket it had come from. "One might even go so far to say cute as a button."

That expression, along with the ease in her Aura that accompanied it, was comforting. It wasn't anywhere close to what it was in Rui's memory – still too dull, too guarded, too _tired_ – but it was better.

"Anyway," she continued, breaking Rui out of her train of thought. "We've got places to be. It's going to be dark in a few hours and I hate travelling through the desert at night, so we'll be holing up at the Outskirt Stand. And before you ask – they have a pretty good menu for a greasy spoon."

"How did you know I was going to ask?"

Delaine shrugged. "You're… what, fourteen now? Fourteen year olds are always hungry. All those growth spurts take energy, y'know, and you've likely spent the last few days eating trail mix and jerky. But I am going to be annoyed if you get taller than me."

Rui did a quick mental comparison of their heights. "I think you're safe there."

"Cool. I like to indulge my complexes where I can." With that, the older girl jumped over the railing down to the next set of stairs where she bounced off the next to land down in the parking area, immediately moving towards a single-seater motorcycle that had been hidden from Rui's notice higher up.

Rui didn't know a lot about combustion vehicles, what with them being so uncommon in Agate Village and never expressing any interest in the subject in general, but the grey retro-styled bike was… cool. Maybe not 'sweet' or anywhere within spitting distance of 'awesome', but Delaine's motorcycle – chipped and battered from years of use and exposure to the rough conditions of Orre but still clearly in great condition where it counted – was most definitely a casual, comfortable 'cool'.

"Nice bike," she said as she got close enough for Delaine to hear the compliment.

"I hope you're not just saying that because you're that desperate to get out of here."

"No, I like it." Not enough to want it for herself, Rui admitted internally, but it looked comfortable enough and it was a very immediate way to get out of this place. And didn't Delaine say something about being into mechanics now? Maybe she'd fixed it up herself.

"Oh, good. I sold my soul to get it," Delaine joked – hopefully? – as she tossed Rui a helmet. The helmet was pink – never one of Delaine's favorite colors, in fact, likely one of her least favorite – which meant that she'd gotten it just for Rui. "Safety first."

Rui clipped the helmet on without complaint, only taking a moment to pull her pigtails clear of the bottom so they wouldn't be uncomfortably cramped against her skull. "So Grandpa sent you? I thought you two weren't talking?"

"We aren't," Delaine said flatly as she helped Rui get into position on her bike. " _But_ something came up where he and the Professor had to work together and I found out his Plan A for picking you up was sending a kid without any desert experience or equipment, so I decided to make myself useful." Taking up position in front of Rui, Delaine gave one more command – "Hold on," – before she turned the engine over and went flying out into the desert before Rui could ask 'on to what?', leaving her to wrap her arms as tightly around Delaine's waist as she could.

One thing that Rui had never missed about Orre during her journey through Unova was the sand, especially the sort of coarse grains that where plinking against all of her exposed skin as they crossed the desert wastes at high speed. Agate Village didn't have much of a problem with the stuff as some other places in Orre, but it still had a way of getting there despite the village being safely secured in the forest.

Another thing that she hadn't missed was how empty her home region was.

As far as both eye and Aura could see, there was nothing. No trees, no Pokémon, no people… not even the background Aura of healthy ground ready to burst forth with life once given some attention. Just dead, empty sand and the odd stone – ah, and the flicker of something alive in the distance, a few miles out. Too far to make out what or how many living creatures were there, but it was an assurance that there was still _something_ out here.

"If you're looking around with Aura, that'll be the Outskirt Stand up ahead," Delaine yelled over the wind. "We're still a decent clip away and we'll have to maneuver a few dunes, but we should be there within the hour. Get some food, top off the water reserves, and pick one of the old rail cars to hole up in for the night."

It sounded like a good plan to Rui's ear, even if part of her just wanted to get home to sleep in her own bed. At the very least, they wouldn't have to sleep outside.

* * *

If I had my way, this would have been a very short stop. Non-existent, if I could have gotten away with it. A quick refill of the water and my gas tank – if it even needed it; I was beginning to have doubts on that front – and then, boom, we'd be gone again. Unfortunately, common sense and the laws of time said no to that course of action, so it was with only the slightest edge of anxiety and annoyance that I parked my motorcycle near one of the unoccupied train cars.

Logically, I shouldn't have had a problem with stopping at the Outskirt Stand overnight. It was safer than trying to pull off a cross region marathon at night and gave me plenty of space away from the umpteen awkward situations I'd left behind me, but there was still that crawling dread that came with being in this place with Rui because of what I knew.

And wasn't that stupid? 'Yeah, I played a video game with you in it and you were kidnapped somewhere around this place because you noticed something you weren't supposed to and got dragged into one of the darkest Pokémon plots ever featured in the games because of it, so I'm leery of the real-life possibilities'. Sure, that was a legitimate reason to be concerned.

Except for the fact that it as. Orre was real, Cipher was real, and Rui… Rui was both talented in Aura and terrible at keeping her feelings – and opinions – under her hat. I could already tell that she'd already picked up on something being wrong with me, just from the concerned looks, but what could I say that would fix it? 'Yeah, I'm kinda broken now because I got flooded with the memories of a past life that was wall-to-wall trauma and bullshit, so please don't make a thing out of it'? That would only make it worse, even without dragging my new collection of scars into play.

And that was why I needed to protect her, because if she was just barely containing her questions about me, how long would she keep silent when presented with a Shadow Pokémon?

"So how does a train get into the middle of the desert?" Rui asked, sideswiping my train of negative thoughts with a single question that I actually knew how to answer.

A distraction. Thank you.

"Well, so the story goes, it was back when Orre was in the business of exporting stone. Some contractors in Unova figured that if they could put down a line between here and there, it would be cheaper than shipping the materials by boat. Cut out the middleman. Well, they didn't contend for the desert." I pointed out a bit of track that ran beneath the train before disappearing under a small sand dune thirty feet away. "The desert ate up the track like a Munchlax going after its lunch. Covered it, wore it down… and probably took down a few crews that had gone out to lay down replacement rail with the sandstorms. The investors got wise to what Orre was pretty quick after that and pulled out… around the same time that the stone market dried up. Not much reason to keep throwing money at a problem if there ain't much profit in solving it, y'know?"

I turned around as I kept walking, hands tucked into my pockets as I looked up at the cloudless orange sky. The moon was making an early appearance, peeking out of its corner of the sky as it waited for the sun to set.

"After that? Locals took over. Stole what track they could get at – metal's valuable stuff, even during an economic downturn – and a family took over the train. Converted the engine into an energy generator, while the old cars switch between storage and motels, turning this old depot into the Outskirt Stand. The place itself if pretty safe – winds from the ocean to the south push back the worst of the sandstorms and they're on the same aquifer as Phenac so their well isn't liable to run dry anytime this century. Since the owner runs a little bit of a generalist shop on the side besides selling fuel and food, it's pretty much the only thing allowing there to be any kind of route to Unova in the first place."

"That's interesting. I didn't know you were that much into modern history."

Well, I'd never shied away from the ancient stuff in this life or the last and reading was reading to a sufficiently voracious bookworm regardless of the subject matter. "It can be pretty interesting and knowing your history is a good way to predict what might happen in the future," I said with a shrug. "Besides, if you take the long view, this'll be ancient history eventually. Knowing it now just puts me ahead of the curve."

Rui gave a small laugh at that. "I don't imagine you'll live that long."

"Who knows? Maybe I'm too weird to die of anything less than a direct asteroid strike to the face."

Still laughing over my lame joke, we entered the former train engine.

Immediately, the light and the noise threw me off guard. Relative isolation and familiarity had given me the illusion of security but now that I'd been shoved into a relatively small place full of strangers – not that full, really, considering the late hour –, my instinctive anxiety around people had come roaring back with a vengeance.

Visually, the place was crowded. It was hard not to be, between the confined interior and the moving parts that took the power generated by the old steam engine and converted it into heat and electricity, but the addition of signs – metal and neon – bolted to the walls, the flat screen TV to the right of the bar flashing between static and whatever signal was available today, and the murmur of human life pushed it into territory that was almost too much for me to handle, freezing me in place long enough to draw the ire of the proprietor.

"Y'going to order somethin' or just occupy the doorway?" he asked, adjusting the set of the bandana wrapped around his forehead. The apron that covered most of his torso gave him away as a cook while the tree trunk thickness of his arms gave him away as someone not to cross idly.

"What's on special?" Dammit, that isn't how words work. That dry mouthed squeak didn't help either.

"Wednesday is chili."

Good. Chili was good. Warm, filling, and always different because nobody had the exact same recipe for making it. My own involved V8, cocoa, and four different kinds of chili powder over a three hour simmer, but I'd seen the better half of a dozen different variations on the dish just within my own extended family. "Two bowls please," I said, holding up two fingers in an unnecessary addition to my order. Dammit, dammit, fuck. Hopefully my public self-embarrassment would be lessened by hiding in the furthest corner of this place… except that booth was occupied by a biker with pale cherry blossom pink hair.

I quickly corrected our course to the booth in front of that, hoping that the action would look natural.

"Are you okay?" Rui asked as soon as we were both seated.

No. I was miles away from anything remotely resembling 'okay'. I was a wreck of a human being attempting to bullshit my way through a life I didn't feel at ease even existing in.

"I'm fine," I lied through my teeth as I tried to strangle my anxiety into submission before it could do anything more embarrassing. "It's been a long day."

Rui's expression of – 'pity', the perverse imp hissed, sparking up another flash of hostility for me to smother – concern deepened as she went through the facial motions of someone who wanted to say something but couldn't pin down the right words or even if they wanted to breach the conversation in the first place. Any chance of that was quickly cut off by the appearance of our dinner however, leaving no choice but to shelve any questions for an ill-defined later.

Whatever. Not talking about my problems worked just fine for me.

As I acclimatized to the atmosphere of the Outskirt Stand, my eyes wandered over to the TV that everyone else was watching.

The display showed a catwalk filled with models in all sorts of ridiculous clothing, many articles of which were modeled after Pokémon. The announcer was switching between English and French easily as each new piece of barely wearable art took center stage, but the English was almost as comprehensible as the French thanks to the announcer's accent. Occasionally the picture would crackle around the edges, digital artifacts scattering the image and the noise that accompanied it. Still, it was clear and reliable enough to catch the prices and be appropriately horrified.

"I could buy a new bike for what they're asking for that thing!" a biker sitting at the bar squawked indignantly as something pink and desert looking came walking down the runway.

The look worked for the tiny Pokémon scurrying to keep up with the model – the poor Slurpuff looked like it was about to trip over its own feet at any second, trying to keep up with a being with legs twice the length of its entire body –, but the human looked like something out of an overly specific and unrealistic pin-up calendar that was trying to hit the intersection between Lolita fashion and confectionary while still maintain some element of titillation.

Personally, I wasn't feeling it. Never been one for dresses, much less the pink fluffy sort that went with glossy white Mary Jane shoes and frilly tights, and like everyone else in the room, the exorbitant price tag attached to it was a turnoff of galactic proportions.

"What is that even supposed to be?" Rui asked.

"Kalosian fashion is a mystery to both man and beast," I said before dropping my voice to a whisper as I scooped up a spoonful of chili. "My best guess is fetish gear."

That whip quick dirty joke drew a sharp bark of laughter from both Rui and the pink haired biker in the both just behind her. Rui's reaction was more important – all that concern that had been building up disappeared in a second as that one perfectly timed piece of juvenile humor broke the ice like dynamite.

Abruptly, the channel changed from frou-frou fashion to breaking news.

"Authorities have made a stunning announcement on the mysterious building discovered in Eclo Canyon earlier today after a witness reported a series of large explosions in the area," the newscaster said as images of a ruined structure spilling black smoke appeared on a screen behind her. "Apparently the villainous team known as Snagem had built a base in one of the local ruins, converting the ancient structure into their headquarters. It is unknown exactly what occurred to cause the team to evacuate the base, but current reports and the testimony of Snagem members arrested at the scene seem to indicate some form of internal sabotage from a leaving member."

"The saboteur is described as a teenager with light hair, tan skin, a light build, and is somewhere between 5'04" and 5'07" tall. This individual is believed to have possession of one of Team Snagem's Snag Machines, so the public is warned to be on the lookout for any individual matching that description and report any suspicious activity matching Snagem's usual methods of operation to the police."

Wes. I wasn't quite sure I would be running into him so soon… or at all, but any presumption of a timeline I could plot my course by was a mistake on my part. The fact that he was unmistakably a kid – 'and what are you supposed to be?' a voice of doubt asked – was another point of stress. Kids shouldn't be caught up in organized crime. Kids shouldn't be caught up in dark, dangerous plots. Kids shouldn't be in danger due to the incompetence and corruption of adults. Yet here we were, in a world where that sort of stuff simply happened because nothing could be relied on to be 'good' and 'just' by default.

I hated it and how powerless I felt in the face of that immutable fact.

Finishing my chili, I pulled out the appropriate cost of dinner out of my wallet, carefully setting aside enough change to count as a tip on the off chance that such a thing was the rule of thumb in Orre. Waiting for Rui to finish and follow, I guided us back to the train car we'd be staying in overnight and, after making sure she got herself settled comfortably, tried to get comfortable myself.

I couldn't sleep. It wasn't a great surprise – there was a very short list of places that I felt safe enough in to fall asleep and even those were subject to very strict conditions. I had to have blankets of just the right texture, the light conditions had to be at one specific level, it couldn't smell weird – and wasn't _that_ a vague quantifier –, the bed couldn't be too big or too small... there were too many ridiculous requirements that needed to be met before I could even think about grabbing a few Z's and an ancient rail car in the middle of the desert met none of them.

All of that added up to being tired, annoyed, and bored out of my mind. So, I decided to walk it off and, being oh so careful to open the sliding door with a minimum of noise so as not to disturb Rui, I left the train car. I could get where we needed to be with the aid of a stiff shot of java in the morning.

At night, the desert was cold and shimmery, moonlight dancing over each grain of sand in the same way it would snow, showing what one might dismiss as an opaque particle of annoyance to be a microscopic jewel capable of playing with the light, perhaps not as adeptly as a proper prism, but still enough to make the dune glitter with half-conceptualized thoughts and words just waiting for a Scheherazade to spin them into a thousand nights of stories enrapturing enough to stay an executioner's blade. Against a midnight blue velvet sky strewn with the glittering jewels of the cosmos and that great mother-of-pearl mirror we dared be so bold as to call 'the moon', it could have been mistaken for some great work of art – a mosaic crafted of the finest materials known to man and a few not – save for the movement of wind sweeping the sand off of the tops of the dunes like saltwater spray being swept from the crests of high ocean waves.

…now I knew I was sleep deprived, because I usually kept my metaphors and imagery half-decently rooted in the now, rather than taking a turn in Lovecraft's corner of the world of word abuse.

To be more practical, it was pretty. Beautiful, almost, and dangerous in the way that the moon made all things by calling to what was wild in a person. That buried, barely chained electricity that threatened to break loose under the influence of that silvery sphere and run wild without regard to anything but the now. It made me want to run, want to climb up on top of buildings and howl. At the same turn, it made me want to hide, to do anything other than acknowledge that influence from the heavens.

Instead, I kept my feet and eyes on the ground, circling around shadows of the Outskirt Stand's engine. A little ways to my right, where the electric spot lights attached to the gas pump cast the brightest glow on the designated 'parking lot', a small Pokémon battle was taking place between a motley selection of trainers, but something else entirely that ended up drawing me short – the sight of a boy crouched in the open door of another sandblasted car, an Umbreon and Espeon milling around him while making concerned noises at his condition.

The boy had silver hair and tan skin, though the last was a little hard to discern through the cherry red glow of an all over first-degree sunburn. The few areas that were untouched by yesterday's unforgiving sun showed what he had been wearing earlier – a visor and a sleeveless muscle shirt if I was reading the outlines right.

This had to be Wes. It couldn't be anyone else, even if I had been expecting a long coat in dark blue.

"Need some help with that burn?" I asked as I wandered over.

The boy's expression soured after that initial flash of surprise and fear. "No." As he moved to disappear back within the confines of his train car, I grabbed his wrist to pull him back.

"Yeah, that's one bad sunburn alright," I said, ignoring the squirming teenager attached to the skin I was looking over. Sunburn had never been one of my problems in this life or the last – just had that type of skin, I guess –, but I'd seen how bad it could get for other people. "You didn't blister at least, which is going to make this experience a lot easier on you. Might even manage to dodge peeling if you get some treatment right away."

"You have no idea how much that doesn't mean to me."

Rolling my eyes, I let him go so I could start rummaging through my bag. Potions and other Pokémon first aid items were pushed to the side as I looked for more human-focused treatment. Then, I found the thing I was looking for.

"Tadaaaa. Here's the answer to your fucking prayers, lobster lad," I declared as I pulled the bottle of aloe vera gel out of my bag, the green goo inside jumping slightly with the motion. It wasn't full, but there was enough to cover up the sunburn the kid was wearing.

Wes fixed a suspicious yellow look on me. "What is it?"

I shook the bottle before squirting a fistful of green goo onto his arm and rubbing it in as the kid tried his best not to show how much the aloe vera was helping to cut through the pain. "The best home remedy for burns, sun or otherwise. Also dry skin, but I think that you're more fussed over the sunburn."

"Stop mothering me. Don't you have anything better to do… like go the fuck to sleep?"

"I'm not mothering you, I'm _bothering_ you." From a slightly maternal angle, admittedly, but that was society's fault for associating 'care' with femininity. It didn't hurt that all I saw when I looked at this kid was something small and in need of protection. "And I'm an insomniac that likes helping people that aren't irredeemable assholes."

Wes scoffed at that. "You're not the best judge of character are you?"

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes again. Edgy teen drama. I was far too old to find that impressive or even mildly intimidating. "You have an Umbreon and an Espeon that are practically glued to your side. Hard to get a better endorsement than that short of reaching outside of the mortal sphere."

The Pokémon were smug about that, even if their owner was less happy with my observation. "I didn't ask for your help," he said sulkily.

"And I didn't ask you if you if you wanted it, so I guess that makes us –"

A commotion broke out behind us where the Pokémon battle had been happening, with one painfully familiar voice piping up high enough to be unmistakable.

Rui.

"I don't know what you did to that Pokémon," she was yelling, her hands braced on her hips like some sort of misplaced and under-aged school teacher. The effect was somewhat spoiled by the fact that she was distinctly shorter than the people she was balling out, but she reclaimed points for effort. "But you should be ashamed of yourself, hurting it so badly that its very Aura is bruised down to the bone!"

The Pokémon she was referring to had to be the Makuhita that was fumbling around near one of the trainer's feet, an unmistakable Shadow Aura clinging to it like a shroud. Somehow, that didn't make it seem any more intimidating – the Pokémon seemed more interested in being as far away from the center of attention as possible than attacking anything or anyone – but it still made it stand out in the same way its trainer's Mickey Mouse-esque hat did.

I recognized that fucker. One of Mirror B.'s rejects. Folly and… something or other. Trudy or Troy or something in that range of names. The two were a set that I'd never quite managed to remember as anything else than a duo – the specifics of which one was which was lost to the haze of memory as well.

Still, I remembered what they did… or what they would try to do now what Rui had called attention to her abilities. They'd try to kidnap her. Steal her away to take to one of their bosses to figure out how her ability could potentially ruin their plans.

Stalking over to the hullaballoo, I flashed the idiots a smile that was more threat display than friendly greeting. "There a problem, kids?"

As Folly and his counterpart quailed under that look, Rui immediately turned to me for backup. "Delaine, they have a Pokémon–"

"Lots of people have Pokémon," I said coolly, watching the Makuhita move itself further behind its trainer's legs. I was scaring it. That almost made me feel bad – though my immediate dislike of its trainer cut that sympathy a bit short. It wasn't a creature I could protect right now, not unless I could steal it away – and theft was not among my skills. "Just because there are idiots who don't know how to raise a Pokémon correctly doesn't mean that we have to make it our business, much as we might be tempted to. If you think it is a serious enough matter, however, we can always take it to the police."

"No!" The kid in the Mickey Mouse hat yelled before catching himself. Was he even older than twenty? I couldn't tell. "I mean, there's no need for that. It's… my Makuhita's just shy, that's all. I just got it recently and it isn't used to me or… anything else yet."

And I had a baby Legendary shoved into my bag. 'Shy' wouldn't fuck up an Aura like that and just looking at the little Fighting-type told me that the right kind of pressure in the right place would see that harmless little creature tearing its opponent apart without regard to anything, including its own safety. Maybe if I didn't have the memories of being a similar creature, I might have believed the excuse, but there was too much fear, too much of that desperate edge that was plainly looking for some plan of attack that would see it survive the fight – maybe not unscathed, maybe not even winning, but all it needed to be was alive – for it to be something so simple as 'shy'.

"Well," I said, the word rasping like an old razor being drawn out of an equally old sheath. For once, my issues aid my intent. "You better treat it right then. Otherwise someone might just decide to make that Pokémon's welfare their business instead of yours."

The kid had enough awareness to pick up the implicit threat and step back away from us, which meant that Rui would be safe for the next few hours and, ideally, for as long as I was nearby. More realistically, it just meant that the Cipher peons would have to look for a moment where I wasn't in a position to stop them before they could take her.

For now, I would focus on keeping Rui safe the best I could – by shepherding her back into the train car for a few more hours of sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 6/22/2018
> 
> This chapter is a variant on the original 'Pursuit', expanding the Outskirt Stand + Rui's capture into two chapters rather than one. It also shifts the timeline slightly to Wes's defection happening in the early afternoon and the Outskirt Stand scenes happening at night, leading to a slightly earlier meeting between Delaine and Wes. Rui's section has also been expanded to showcase more of her thought process and lets her notice more incongruities between the Delaine she remembers and the one she's dealing with – differences in Aura, attitude, and the presence of unexpected scars.
> 
> Delaine's behavior has been amended to being more consistent with the awkward and neurotic character we've been working with, most of which is an internal affair but leaks through to the real world via various behaviors. Neuroses aren't characterized by delusions or hallucinations, so the unfriendly voices are mostly just persistent negative thoughts given vague form.
> 
> Canon names, as I may have mentioned before, in the event of high nonsense, will be altered to what works. Gonzap/Helgonza is just Gonza (maybe a nickname, who knows). Others… probably won't be changed for coherency purposes.


	6. Pursuit

Trudly liked to think that he had his shit together, but if he was being honest with himself, his life was defined by the words 'winging it'.

Capturing his first Pokémon without having any of his own to back him up? Winged it. Getting his driver's license? Winged it and managed to scrape through by the skin of his teeth. Joining the Mirror Boss's section of Cipher? Completely winged it with the power of complete bullshittery his only backup. It was only a show of small mercies from the universe that kept all of those 'fuck it, I'm doing it anyway' moments from backfiring spectacularly and, logically, that meant that there was always the chance that one of those mercies would just… fail to show up when Trudly truly needed it.

Right now, he was warming himself up to winging something a lot more serious than any of those things – a kidnapping. Specifically, the kidnapping of a girl who could somehow identify a Shadow Pokémon on sight. It didn't take a genius to see how many ways someone like that could make his boss's plans go sideways and the fact that he got a second opinion from his boss and then one of his boss's co-bosses when he'd called to ask what he should do spelled out what he had to do plainly.

Capture the girl. Bring her in for study. We'll handle it from there.

Easier said than done. Forget that the girl was clearly a trainer – no idea what he would be dealing with there –, she had that… that creepy psycho hovering behind her like an overprotective Ghost-type. Trudly didn't even know where to begin with _that_ one, though the eyes came to mind first – such a dark brown that they looked almost black and too intense for comfort, even before they zeroed in on him with a dark intent that promised something painful in the future. Hell, – she? He? It was impossible to tell with that shapeless outfit– they even managed to scare the crap out of a Shadow Pokémon! Definitely the mark of a person not to be fucked with lightly, that was for sure, trainer or not.

On the other side of the danger coin was what lay in Pyrite Town if he and Folly managed to actually snatch the girl. Chief Hercule Sherles and Ginzaru 'Duke' Ingles were threats in two very different ways. Sherles was smart, but limited by that idiot Johnson and the mountain of work that came with being one of the few police chiefs in Orre, while the 'Duke' of Pyrite Town was big, strong, and mean enough to put the first two descriptions into very physical threats to anyone that threatened the operation of 'his' town. Only by stealing the man's precious Pokémon was Trudly's boss able to keep the giant in line and even that security felt tenuous. Neither of the men would look kindly on something like kidnapping, especially when the words 'teenage' and 'girl' got involved.

So the task of 'capture the girl' got complicated.

Trudly sighed as he traced his finger through the sand on the floor of the freight cart he and Folly were staying in. A trace of distant daylight was beginning to peek through the cracks in the door, giving him a countdown to when his plan needed to be pulled off. Folly was still asleep, so there was no help from that quarter – not that Trudly would be expecting much. Not a whole lot going on in the brain department from the guy who thought two Whismur were a solid battle team.

But back to the kidnapping. Step One would be to have some way of escape – and both him and Folly had all the required hotwiring skills to manage that. They'd have to figure out which of the few multi-person rides would work best for their needs, but beyond that, Step One was smooth sailing.

Step Two, on the other hand, was trickier – getting the girl away from her creepy human shadow. That would take timing and no small amount of luck. An opportunity had come and gone with the night, but he didn't know if the psycho slept with their eyes open or not.

With a bit of luck, they could pull it off. Half the plan was little better than just 'winging it', but hell if that wasn't what Trudly and Folly had been doing their whole lives, so why would this kidnapping be any different?

* * *

A few hours later, Trudly would have given anything to go back in time and take back that stupid, stupid statement. 'Haha, why would this be dangerous?', the Trudly of the past would say, falling to laughter alongside Folly, only to have that laughter cut off as the Trudly of the now busted in, wide-eyed and covered in dust from the most terrifying ride he'd run in his life.

'Because,' Future-Trudly would say as he dug his hands hard enough into the doors of the train car to draw blood, 'it involves pissing off a superviolent, hyperfocused psycho bitch from _hell_.'

They'd been pushing their stolen car at its maximum controllable speed – and sometimes a little past that – for almost an hour, trying to escape that… that _thing_ on their heels, weaving through the most dangerous areas of the desert he thought he could survive. It didn't help; that motorcycle was always there, closing in far more often than it dropped behind, never faltering even in the face of blinding sand or destabilizing gusts of wind. He could have sworn that he'd seen that motorcycle catch air from ramping off of a Krookodile's back before slamming back down onto the sand and returning to the chase.

Trudly didn't know what was going to happen when they finally had to stop. Maybe something would happen to throw their pursuer of their tail for good, maybe he'd have to throw Folly at them as a distraction. He wasn't counting on his boss sending any backup to save them, but if he and Folly could get themselves and the girl to one of Cipher's safe houses before the girl's – guardian? Sibling? – protector caught up...

"Get back here, motherfucker!"

That 'if' felt pretty fucking small though and was steadily shrinking as the motorcycle slowly closed the distance between them, making it easy to make out the string of intermingled curses and threats being screamed at their backs.

Most of it was pretty generic, but there was just enough that wasn't to make Trudly uneasy about what would happen once that lunatic caught them. The threat about making him eat pavement and then sowing the broken remains of his teeth in his grandmother's backyard so she might end up with better grandchildren was a little too specific for comfort.

"We can't keep up this chase, man!" Folly screamed over the wind. A glance to the driver's seat revealed white knuckles wrapped around the steering wheel and a dashboard full of dials pushed to the red. "We're running out of gas and this thing is starting to shake in bad, bad ways."

Ignoring the fact that the same logic dictated that their pursuer should have run out of fuel a long time ago, Trudly made a snap decision. "One last dodge and then on to Phenac!"

The boss had people in Phenac, he'd said to Trudly when he'd made the call. Just had to go to the right places and they'd take care of them, he'd said. Phenac was their best and last chance at this point. Hell, maybe even the security forces in the town might save them if they somehow covered up the fact that they kidnaped a chick – and there was a burlap sack in the back of their stolen vehicle. Trudly wrestled the girl into it, hoping the makeshift gag and bindings he'd managed to get on her would hold long enough to get her inside the boss's safe house. While he was at it, he saw their pursuer swerve on a slipping dune, disappearing along with the crest of sand they'd been climbing.

The girl squirmed, almost managing to get a scream out past the bandana Trudly had forced between her teeth. That scream made sense, because nobody would mount that kind of crazy pursuit if they didn't care about the person they were trying to save and logic followed that such a relationship would be a two-way street.

Trudly almost felt bad for a second. Then he remembered that the only reason why it had even happened was because he was doing crimes and had been doing them for the last two years without anything remotely resembling regret, even when he'd stolen a Plusle out of the hands of its six year old Trainer. That shut up that feeling of guilt pretty quick.

Within a few minutes, he could just see the shining central dome of Phenac City coming up over the horizon, more and more details springing into being as they came closer and closer. As soon as they got on the other side of that gate marking the line between the desert and civilization, they'd be on the last effortless leg of this stupid mission, all ready to be over and done with it the moment they shoved the sack full of kidnapped teenage girl in through the right doorway. And then they could move on with their lives without any psychotic babysitters coming down on them like the fist of an angry god.

It took only a minute to park their stolen ride and unload their squirming cargo. The girl wasn't that heavy, really, and while Trudly wasn't sure how much of that was her size or the fact that the load was divided between him and Folly, he wasn't really going to question the convenience. The fact that it was easy going now was just fine with him…

Until that kid stepped into their path.

There wasn't much to look at there. A string bean, thirteen or fourteen years old at best, wearing a battered tarp tied together with rope as some sort of makeshift poncho with a silvery visor over his eyes and hair that was just a shade off of being the same color spiking all over the place above that. Just behind that visor, Trudly could make out a pair of wide gold eyes that quickly narrowed as they flicked from him to Folly and then to the squirming sack between them.

"What's in the bag?" he asked.

"None of your business –!" Folly started before Trudly gave a fake cough followed by an even faker grin.

"Just, some… eh… stuff. Ordinary junk. Nothing you have to worry about –"

"Mmmph!"

The kid failed to look impressed. If anything, he looked even more serious as his stance shifted to a clear intent to fight. "Last time I checked, 'junk' didn't squirm _or_ scream," he said, tarp cape shifting as the kid reached around his back for something. A Pokéball, more than likely. Nobody with a lick of common sense would be travelling in Orre without at least one Pokémon with them.

Folly was on it immediately, pulling out his own set. "You want a battle? I'll give you a battle!" he yelled as he unleashed his Pokémon… only to have the kid laugh in his face.

"Whismur?" the kid finally got out around his cackling. "You're going to battle me with not one, but _two_ fucking _Whismur_?"

The Pokémon in question looked somewhat dejected at the assessment.

"I mean, goddamn, you couldn't even try to diversify your team? Put something in there that isn't made out of bubblegum and social anxiety?"

One of the Whismur began to cry very quietly.

"D-dude! That's low!" Folly yelled, gesturing wildly as he tried to regain some sort of control over the situation. "Send out your Pokémon if you're gonna battle, but don't rag on mine for bein' cute! There's nothing wrong with cute!"

The kid threw his cape back and an Umbreon ran out, diving onto one of the Whismur before it could even think about launching a counter attack, and as an Espeon stepped out from behind him – was it hiding there the whole time with the other one? –, the kid raised an eyebrow.

"You going to give up while you still have half your team upright?"

"Trudly, back me up!"

"Can't, my team's wiped out from earlier," Trudly ground out between grit teeth, trying to find a way to get out of this situation. They couldn't win this fight, not without something wildly unexpected throwing off their opponent's advantage. They couldn't just make a run for it, could they? This one time they went out of their way for the boss, of course everything would turn to shit. Fuck it all –

Suddenly, there was a crash. Trudly just managed to jump out of the way before a motorcycle – an all-too-familiar motorcycle, still roaring as it flew past them – went skidding past him on its side through the sand until it finally hit a dune too big for it to simply plow through.

He turned around to see where it had come from, which was a mistake, because he'd turned just in time to see the crazy bitch he'd assumed they'd lost in the dunes fall out of the sky to drive Folly into the sand.

"SHOULD HAVE WORKED MORE ON YOUR CARDIO," the lunatic snarled as they lifted Trudly's partner up into the air with a single hand, shaking him like a leaf. "THAT OR YOUR BASIC COMMON **FUCKING** SENSE, YOU STUPID SON OF A BITCH, BECAUSE IF YOU HAD ANY, YOU WOULDN'T HAVE FUCKED WITH THE LIKES OF **ME**."

"Don't hurt me, man!"

"DON'T _HURT_ YOU? YOU KIDNAP SOMEONE IMPORTANT TO ME, MAKE ME CHASE YOU HALFWAY ACROSS THE FUCKING DESERT, AND YOU THINK THAT THERE'S A THING YOU COULD SAY TO ME THAT COULD KEEP ME FROM HURTING YOU?" She pulled him closer. "Fuck. That."

Well, so much for Folly then. Trudly wished him good fucking luck in the afterlife… or at least, he would when he was sure he wasn't going there himself.

He started running as quickly as his squirming burden would allow, praying that he wouldn't trip before he could get beyond the gate. Already he could see the white armored security forces scrambling inside Phenac and that gave him a flicker of fresh hope. If he could just get there –

The kid tackled him, knocking Trudly off balance and making him lose his grip on the girl in the sack entirely. Still, Trudly had retained enough of his balance to keep running and jump into the car.

The mission was bust. The most he could do was run and hope that he could come back for Folly as soon as the dust died down.

* * *

Wes didn't know why he had interfered. Reflex? No, that would imply that heroism was something that he did regularly and he was anything but the self-sacrificing type. But this time, it had taken all of half a second after seeing the obvious mooks and the too large, too lively sack in between them to decide that he wasn't having it – whatever 'it' was; his first guess was either poaching or kidnapping – and that sending Zener and Chaya in was the right thing to do.

Now, he was left to sit around, awkwardly answering whatever questions the white armored security forces that Phenac City employed in the place of police put to him… most of which were completely useless.

"What were you doing in the area?" the one who was taking down Wes' statement asked.

"Stopping for water before making the push for Pyrite."

As he expected, that immediately drew a reaction from the guard, though their expression was almost unreadable through that tinted visor. "You're from Pyrite Town?"

"No. I'm just stopping there before heading to Gateon." Any idiot knew that marathon runs through Orre simply weren't responsible, regardless of if they were talking about the desert that took up the eastern half of the region or the impenetrable mixture of forests and mountains that took up the west. But, on the other side of the equation was the simple fact that everyone who lived in Phenac seemed to hold themselves above everyone else in the region like they were somehow better and the fact that their nearest neighbors happened to be the ex-mining town full of roughs of various stripes...

"Leaving the region?"

"Old job didn't work out. Figured I'd try my luck in Unova."

The security goon hmm'ed at that, but moved on to the next question. "Why are you dressed like that?"

Wes stretched out an arm just enough to let yesterday's sunburn show without moving his makeshift tarp cape enough to reveal the duffle bag of ill-gotten goods he'd stowed underneath. "I don't have a jacket," he explained in the wake of a sympathetic hiss of pain from the security officer. "There anything else you need or can I get out of the sun so I can apply my burn gel without rubbing sand into my wounds?"

"Just one – what is your relationship to the victim in this case?"

The redhead? Wes didn't know her from the next stranger on the street, but… "I know her friend," he said, glancing at the older of the pair. She was going through the same routine with another guard and a short, well-dressed man with a walrus mustache and a chrome dome who was probably the Mayor, and something about her face – the twitching eyebrow and stiffness of her otherwise flat expression most likely– indicated some deep frustration with her current situation. "Though I don't know how that's relevant – I didn't know about this whole thing until she came rushing in like doomsday on that unlucky schmuck."

Maybe that said something about human nature, that a person whose first introduction to Wes was as a nosy nurse with blunt manners and good intentions could also be a person who could and would chase a couple kidnappers down across a desert, deliberately crashing a motorcycle and going airborne – all for the sake of rescuing someone. Probably not a stranger, no, there was too much familiarity in the two's interactions for that, but that still was way outside of any normal human's usual pattern of action. The fact that Wes couldn't really find it in himself to be surprised – once the initial shock of the deliberate motorcycle crashing wore off, of course – was probably telling in its own way, because it meant that he could compare the nosy nurse with the creature of vengeance and come out nodding 'yep, I can see it' at the end.

"Anyway, did you need anything else?" he asked, turning his attention back to the security officer.

"No, you're fine. Just don't cause any trouble while you're here in Phenac City."

Wes hadn't been planning on it, but he still made a note to himself to keep an eye out for any people wearing white ceramic armor. Shuffling through the sand and up the steps to the front gates, Wes got his third ever look at the interior of Phenac City.

Phenac City was one of those places that were obviously planned out in advance. Oh, there had probably been a regular town there once – there wouldn't have been any reason to build such a fancy city without a stable water source and it would have taken a town to establish the presence of one –, but it was clear that somewhere along the line someone with money and a vision had decided 'fuck this, we're making an objet d'art instead of letting shit happen natural like' and started sketching.

The end result was a minimalistic, elegantly simple, and meticulously calculated series of circles and straight lines that rose to meet the water slick dome that crowned the center of the city. White quartz inlaid with mosaics of brightly-colored semi-precious stones glowed brightly under the midday sun, almost to the point where it hurt to look at anything, and crystal clear water sluiced through the spider web of channels cut through city in a very deliberate show of resources.

'Look at us. Look at this paradise in the desert. Look at how perfect we are.'

There was no rust, no litter, not even a single billboard to advertise some ware for sale. There were no factories, no industry, no nothing except for a few non-descript storage facilities on the outside of the city's protective walls. It was a sterile art project that people just happened to live in.

Wes, naturally, hated the place.

A more generous person might have said that they disliked it, but Wes didn't hesitate to use the word 'hate'. The shining city, with all is obnoxiously ostentatious wealth, better-than-you citizenry that refused to acknowledge any outsiders they assumed came from one of the poorer cities that they associated with crime and dirt was very hate-able to someone that grew up in a place that was effectively its antithesis. The fact that even existing in this place hurt his eyes didn't help either, but it was the attitude of inherent superiority that really ground his gears.

The poor didn't have any choice about where they were born or what they had to do for their daily crust of bread. It was the rich who took up depravity and criminal activity as hobbies and Wes wouldn't put it past this city to have some Grade-A slime ball stowed somewhere behind their spotless façade of social cleanliness. The only thing that Phenac had any right to be proud of would be its unfailing water source – and even that they managed to show it off like a prized jewel instead of used practically like such a precious resource.

There was also the fact that Wes simply didn't fit in. Any other city in Orre, he could blend in – even the crowded cityscape of Neogate gave him room to fade into the crowd, but Phenac… Phenac was too clean, too ordered for anyone who wasn't similarly superficially polished. Wes was anything but that – a real rock among cut diamonds, one might say.

Wes would take that as a compliment. A rock made no pretentions about what it was or wasn't and diamonds, while easy to admire, were little more than very shiny distractions in the desert. The fact that nobody cared about rocks –

"Hey."

Wes jumped, almost falling to the ground as he spun around to see who'd snuck up on him. The crazy chick, with the small redhead hovering just behind her. Hell.

Not that she's acting crazy now, he realizes. Her expression was… calm. He almost wanted to call it 'tired', but there was still that edge there from when she was being interviewed by the security officers. An edge that said 'I know they're still watching me and I don't trust that'.

"Just wanted to say thanks for helping me rescue Rui," she said, shoving her hands in her pockets awkwardly as the redhaired girl – Rui? – continued to watch him with those big blue eyes. Daylight and sanity do her no favors – the wild intensity that had turned her figure into something impressive had gone and left behind a lanky teenage girl with too many hard angles, what could have been either a case of 'resting bitch face' or an acute sensitivity to sunlight, and the messiest hair Wes had seen in the last few weeks – though considering how many people with Snagem shaved their heads all the way down to the scalp, it didn't make for much of a contest. "My name's Delaine, just in case I forgot to introduce myself earlier."

"Ah." What were the niceties to this again? Oh right. "My name's Wes," he said. "Uh… how's your bike?"

Delaine grimaced. "Gotta pull it out of the sand and look it over. Was kinda in a rush, between Rui, those idiots, and you."

Wes doesn't know what kind of expression his face is wearing, but it feels very unimpressed. "I kinda guessed. But I gotta ask – why were those idiots after your…" Sister? Cousin? Girlfriend? Regular friend? "…Rui anyway?"

Probably nothing good, he already knew, because nothing good involved burlap sacks and gags shoved in mouths. Add in the fact that they'd been so desperate to get her into a city that prided itself on being squeaky clean and better than everyone else… no, there was no good reason for that to happen to a teenage girl.

"I… uh, wandered off and… got into a battle with the one with the hat," Rui said, looking down as she rubbed her arm awkwardly.

"Well, that would explain why the Devastator didn't come down on them like the wrath of god back at the Stand then," Wes snarked before shaking his head. While there wasn't much to see through the loose fit jacket and cargo pants, the fact that she'd not only been able to launch herself off a moving vehicle but pick a guy her size off the ground with one hand and no leverage spoke to a high level of physical threat condensed into one angry brown-haired package. "But not why they would kidnap you. Pokémon battles aren't _that_ important."

After all, he should know.

"I saw something…something very wrong with one of his Pokémon," the younger girl admitted. "Its… its Aura… all twisted and dark."

Aura? Twisted? Those words were too familiar and if the dark look on Delaine's face was any indication, they were familiar to her too.

"Shouldn't talk about it here," she said tersely, looking around their surroundings carefully. "Not safe."

Phenac unsafe? Impossible. It was an annoying place, sure, but they took pride in their 'safety'.

Physical safety, his common sense corrected. There was nothing stopping one of the upstanding members of the community from selling information to those interested in such things.

"Anyway, we're heading to Pyrite to file a report with Detective Sherles before heading back home," Delaine said, still obviously wary of something that had yet to be explained to either Rui or Wes, though Wes had his own suspicions. "If you want to come with, I certainly wouldn't say no to having Rui ride along in a sidecar attached to a motorcycle that hasn't crashed today."

For a moment, Wes was tempted. Maybe because he liked the idea of having someone willing to tear halfway through the region for his sake, but there seemed to be a… security in standing in the crazy one's shadow. But then he remembered something – namely, that he doesn't know anything about this chick and certainly hasn't done any riding around her, yet she somehow knows what his motorcycle looks like.

This girl, Wes decided, knew too much about too many things.

"Thanks, but I'll pass."

* * *

As Wes walked away, I pushed down the urge to start kicking myself. We needed him. And there he was going, raising the chances that I'd lose him permanently.

Fucking shit. I hate this whole situation. This is Colosseum, one of the darkest Pokémon games ever produced and, if I had any chance at getting the 'good end' – and didn't it burn to think of this life like a game –, I had to get Wes on our team. The fact that Rui was fourteen and Wes couldn't be much further off makes that irritation worse. I don't care if the kid's an ex-criminal, because he's still a kid. Kids should be figuring out cars and feelings in between planning out the rest of their lives on shaky knowledge and passing whims, not figuring out how to save the fucking planet from goddamn supervillains.

But here we fucking were anyway; two minors and whatever the hell I was supposed to be against an organization nobody other than me had any information about and fuck if I had any evidence that I could use to prove it.

Shit. Fuck. Damn.

Murder had crossed my mind for a moment, when Es Cade had come to smile and share false platitudes with me and Rui, but I'd thrown the idea away as quickly as it had arrived. The man was scum, but he was a glorified executive in the grand scheme of things. The fact that I wasn't a killer was another part of the equation – it was all well and good to state the simple solution of murder, but it took a special kind of monster to sweep through a town with a hitlist in hand and I liked to think I wasn't capable of it. More likely than not, I wasn't.

So what did that leave? Robbing Wes – a dick move that I wasn't all that sure I could pull off without putting him in the hospital –, playing the long game – who the fuck did I think I was –, keeping my nose in my own business – again, who the fuck did I think I was –, or to just keep chugging along Plan A: follow what I remember and do what I think is right.

"Are you alright?" Rui asked, pulling me out of my reverie.

"I'm always alright," I replied, forcing a smile that faltered as it failed to convince her. "Anyway, do you want to take a little tour around town before I put my bike back together? I hear their Colosseum's got some remarkable architecture."

Like the rest of the town wasn't an architect's fantasy land. I'd probably be impressed if they'd picked a different, less obnoxious aesthetic that didn't stink of 'elitist Arizona gated community'… and if the white-on-white-on-beige color scheme of the granite stonework – naturally full of quartz crystals for maximum sun reflecting – wasn't hurting my eyes.

Not to say that everything else here wasn't hurting my eyes. It was the desert under morning sunlight – everything was too bright for me. Still, I could see well enough to get a sense for the local geography, which, while significantly bigger than I remembered, was still recognizable as the same idea as the simplified version in Colosseum.

That wasn't surprising. There were a lot of reasons why a video game – especially on 6th gen systems – would limit the size of an area and the number of NPCs present in it that simply weren't relevant to reality. I could respect all those things, even if I didn't like how much harder it made my life.

Scuffing my heel on a step, I arranged all the facts I had in my mind and tried to arrange them into an image that I could work with.

Right, how did this part of the game go again? Wes saves Rui, wanders around town with her in tow, running into some of his former Snagem teammates before a harmless encounter one of the Cipher elites in front of the Mayor's house – where the fuck even was that? –… what was his name? I couldn't remember, but the visual of the character itself was easy enough to remember.

Tall man. Long silver hair. Red eyes. Purple, black, and red jumpsuit that looked like something that could have come out of a Kingdom Heart's junior villain's closet. Impossible to forget something like that… and just as hard to miss in a town as bright as this. Which meant that the fact that there was no one to here that was even close to that description – beyond Wes, if you squinted really hard – was a problem I needed to take into equation.

'Easy answer – we either missed him or the game only had it as a foreshadowing thing,' I thought as we walked the path towards the Phenac Colosseum. 'Or, less good option, somehow my being here has thrown off what I can expect from the situation.'

It wasn't like that hadn't happened already anyway, but I liked bad things where I could see them. Where I could learn their patterns and then go on to predict their movements from there. That's was the only way to know that you were safe – knowing what everyone else was going to do and keeping them from being able to do the same to you… and assuming that you knew what was going on and what was going to happen even when your 'certainties' started sliding sideways was a mistake.

Wes was my current wild card – a snippet of the Clash's 'Should I Stay or Should I Go' flickered through my mind with a casual flippancy, because didn't that song fit this situation just perfectly? – and chief concern thanks to the unique resources he brought to the table but what was Rui in that same equation?

In the game, she was a glorified Geiger counter for Shadow Pokémon and the game's only limit on abusing the power of the Snag Machine – well, besides the limited storage boxes – contributing almost nothing to the story beyond railroading the player into saving the day and directing them to the resources required to do so, being an annoyance almost the entire way.

In this reality, she was a fourteen-year-old girl who, while well-meaning and a good kid, was out of her depth in the situation. She didn't have a measure for the darkness that people were capable of when they cared more about money or power more than anything else, living or dead. She was also family in every way that counted save for blood and I didn't want her in danger for every reason I'd already listed.

On a purely technical level, I could get away with leaving her out of it. I had the same sensory capabilities, the same – well, almost the same – background with her grandfather, combined with more practical experience and skills. Okay, so the martial arts knowledge was probably low on the list of relevant skills but a mechanically minded, tech savvy sidekick wouldn't go unappreciated when it came to this 'quest'.

The problem would be convincing Rui that my argument was right and that she should stay out of it.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Rui asked.

I glanced sideways at her. "Why do you keep asking?"

The girl chewed on her lip, clearly searching for the right words to say. "Your Aura's been… weird. It's subtle, but it's… different from what I remember." Darker, Rui didn't say, but no other description would suit me better.

Rui's Aura could never be described as dark. It was a bright cloud of cotton candy bright colors that could almost be mistaken for an opal being turned over in a curious hand if not for the lack of shadows in it to confirm it as anything so base as mere matter. Her moods were as easy to follow as a shift in daylight, with her sadness veering into bruising purples and blues while happiness was a bright pink and her anxieties idled around the area between yellow and green.

Sometimes, I wondered what my Aura really looked like. Was it a crackling fire or something more subdued, like the sensation of something slipping beneath the surface of dark water like a secret? I'd always favored the fire interpretation, for the sparking temper that defined almost all of my reactions, the barely bridled anger that boiled under my skin, and the hatred that had settled around my heart like charcoal – the remains of something better, long since eaten up by my worst traits – but that was my own whimsical nature talking.

"So? It's been about four years since you last saw me. People can change a lot in four years."

A person can go from being a vibrant, beautiful, wonderful example of how damn giving humans can be to being completely shattered in four years because of one bastard who shouldn't have crossed paths with them not _letting_ _ **go**_.

Rui's Aura flickered in concern – 'Or is that _fear_?' the perverse imp suggested unhelpfully – as the acidic thought and the tangle of emotions that went with it crossed my mind. So I wasn't as good at hiding my emotions as assumed.

That was a pity. I'd enjoyed having people again.

'Did you really expect it to last though? What with you being _you_ and all the garbage that comes with that.'

Ugh. "You want to check out the Colosseum before we go? And then maybe hit the Pokécenter on the way back?" I asked, scratching the back of my neck. "I didn't think to ask if those morons hurt your Pokémon at any point in the kidnapping."

Rui blinked. "Uh… it's probably not a bad idea. I kind of forgot about that while I was tied up."

"I think most people would. Crises tend to rearrange priorities in the short-term." Like me forgoing any concerns about personal safety or logic when I was chasing down the morons that had taken her.

We walked a bit further in silence, only the absence of crickets keeping the situation from optimum awkwardness.

Should I say something? What would I even say? What little came to mind was pathetic, if not outright cringe-worthy.

Thankfully, it was Rui broke the silence. "Earlier, you acted like you'd seen a Pokémon like that Makuhita before."

Goddammit, this was a terrible place for this conversation because what were the odds that there was someone from Cipher listening right now? "Yes." I looked away, scanning our surroundings for anyone that looked like they were listening in. I didn't want to be the person responsible for putting a big fat target on everyone else's back. "There's a Houndour up at Professor Acacia's lab that's in a similar condition. Different set of behavioral displays, but same Aura problems. Even called Eagun in to confirm it. They might still be there now, though they might have already gone back to Agate Village."

Rui's Aura sparked a candy bright red – the kind that warned of high spice and cinnamon content in edibles and of incandescent anger in her. "Is that why you offered to pick me up? To get my grandpa to help you?"

Was that what she really thought of me? "No. The motorcycle they came in on wasn't modded for desert travel and without a sidecar, they couldn't have carried three people back safely even if they'd managed to get to the border crossing in the first place. I didn't want you getting hurt, so I offered to pick you up myself. No ulterior motives, no strings attached, end of story."

My little rant might have come out harder than I wanted it to, but the look of regret that flashed across Rui's face was satisfying… for the zero point three seconds it took for my guilt at being the one to cause it flooded in.

"I'm sorry I–"

"Don't. Apologize," I said, cutting her off. "You've had a rough day and I'm not easy to get along with even on a good one. Just… don't accuse me of shit like that, alright? I don't… if I had done something like that, I would have told you straight out. I don't fuck around with…"

With family, I wanted to say. Friends. People that meant something to me.

Instead, I said, "…with stuff like that." Wow, such a good way to end that sentence. Should have just kept my mouth shut. I coughed before changing the subject. "Anyway, that's the Phenac Colosseum right up ahead. Let's go in, see how the better half take their bread and circuses."

* * *

The woman behind the desk might have warned us off of going into the colosseum proper – 'They're already started and they usually lock the doors until the events are over,' she'd explained quickly after apologizing – but there was nothing stopping us from appreciating what we could see of the place.

The building itself seemed to be built in layers, the colosseum proper removed from the outer face by at least one layer of open space – part of which was occupied by the lobby we were standing in, though you could catch glimpses into other sections through the irregular holes in the partitions. My best guess was those were to help the air circulate through the place, because there weren't much in the way of conventional vents to work with a more 'traditional' cooling system. Same with the lightening – a few choice openings and mirror placements were more than enough to brighten the place up to near-daylight conditions.

Someone had an eye for energy efficiency when they were designing this place. The distant hum of central air said that it wasn't an entirely 'natural' system and there were a few recessed lights to be seen around, but it was clever.

"I didn't expect it to be so… nice in here. Like the air isn't hot or dry at all."

"All the water moving around probably acts like a natural cooling system," I said, looking around the part of the lobby at ground level. The lack of railings separating the walkways from the waterways – just how deep did those things go anyway? – prickled at my inner complainer. That sort of oversight was just asking for shit to happen and whoever had put this place together should have thought about safety before aesthetics. There had to be at least three different kinds of lawsuits waiting to happen. "What doesn't evaporate carries the heat away when it moves on to the other waterways."

"That is absolutely correct!"

I barely stifled my flinch as the mayor – Es Cade, Evice, I didn't even know – approached, a wide plastic grin plastered across his face. I'd seen that sort of mask before – my dad's was almost as good, save for the few times it slipped in public – and knew better than to trust it. It didn't matter if he was two inches shorter than me and almost as wide as he was tall, this was someone dangerous. "You certainly have an eye for engineering, young lady. Most just see the superficial aspects and move on, but you seem to have divined the true purpose just by looking at it."

"It's a talent," I said, casting my eyes up to the ceiling as a means of avoiding eye contact. "But anyone with half a brain can just look at Phenac City and see that a lot of deliberation went into its design."

"A lot of that was the work of myself and my father," the mayor said, mustache twitching as his grin widened. "You could say that this city is something of a family project. My grandfather founded it on the well he dug, my father made it into something bigger with his designs, and I've… well, I've merely polished our little desert gem as best I can. It's that hard work that makes the title of Mayor go hand-in-hand with the name Backley S. Cade."

So the keys of the city got passed down along with the family name. Well, at least that gave me some concrete information rather than some half-remembered name pulled out of a hat during the translation of the game from Japanese to English. "It's an achievement to be proud of," I said without an ounce of deception. A thriving city in one of the least friendly environments on this planet wouldn't be anything less than that, but from an artist's and engineer's point of view, the sheer skill that went into the architecture was impressive.

Too bad it was currently owned by a Grade-A asshole.

"If you like, I could give you two a tour of the city. With the tournament going on, my schedule is free…" the mayor began to offer.

"Thank you, _sir_ ," I hated using that word but polite deference had its uses, "but we've got to be going. Got to get home by nightfall and it's a long drive."

That seemed to be enough to get us a polite dismissal – along with an invitation to take a tour the next time we came back to Phenac, not that I intended on taking S. Cade up on it.

Stepping into the daylight outside saw my eyes dazzled for a moment, but my Aura sense was more than enough to tell me that there were four people in front of me. As my eyes adjusted, I was able to identify them.

Wes, still wrapped up in that silly tarp cape from earlier, and three goons with the shaved heads and red vests of Team Snagem.

This, I remembered. Wes confronting the Snagem goons outside of the Phenac Colosseum. Of course, the encounter was initiated by him exiting the building, but this was close enough that I had some idea of what I was working with.

"Hey, Wes. Having trouble?"

Wes's eyes flicked to us and then back to the baddies in front of him as the lead goon gave me a sideways stink eye. "Friends of yours?"

My polite smile began its transformation into something a lot less friendly and a whole lot more predatory. "Now, I was just about to ask you that, though really, what kind of friends gang up on a buddy like this? Rui, does that seem very friendly to you?"

"No, not really," she said, staring at them levelly. "If anything, I'd call it 'unfriendly'."

"Hey, don't get yourself in a twist," the lead idiot – who held a remarkable resemblance to one of my high school bullies, save for the lack of hair – said cockily. "We were just talkin' to ol' Wes here about returning somethin' he 'borrowed' and forgot to give back."

"Really." My eyes slid over to Wes as one of my eyebrows rose.

Wes shifted awkwardly under the attention, one of his arms clearly shifting to shove some sort of bag behind his back.

Well. At least he wasn't dumb enough to wear the Snag Machine in public.

"Look, bitch –"

I grabbed the fool by his throat and squeezed. "That was a poor, poor choice of words," I said, still grinning as I lifted him up just enough to take away his traction without actively threatening his life. I'd _dreamed_ about doing something like this to his look alike from my last life, though the lack of windows to throw him out of and buses to push him in front of precluded recreating the fantasy further. "You know, you look a whole lot like someone I went to school with. Your name _Dennis_ by any chance? I just want to get an idea of whether I should just throw you to the ground or do some permanent damage to your windpipe."

"Hk–"

That was a lie. I didn't have enough experience with anatomy or brutality to know how to do damage without threat of death. I had some abstracts and more than a few near certainties from personal experience for what would hurt without causing lasting harm. Broken collar bone – that kind of breakage hurt like a motherfucker and would require a sling for a few months –, broken fingers, broken toes…

"Look, eh, _lady_ ," one of the other mooks said, stepping forward just enough to establish that he was the new 'spokesman' of the group without necessarily stepping into range. "We're just here to get something back that your buddy here stole. We're not here to fight you, so you can stop killing Rob."

"Yeah, turns out I don't really care about crimes carried out against criminals," I said, dropping my victim back to the ground before pushing him into one of the sluices carrying water away from the Colosseum dome while he was still off balance. It would take him a minute or two to pull himself out and onto his feet, time which I could use to destroy the rest of his dignity. "Or at least, I don't care about anyone stealing equipment from _thieves and poachers_. Seize the means of production, am I right? Now, are you going to go away nicely or do I need to need to go primeval on the rest of you Team Snagem fools?"

 _That_ got a flinch from almost everyone present, though Rui's Aura simply settled to a spike of surprise. Seriously? They had fucking uniforms. The only way they could be more obvious was if they gave out club jackets that had 'TEAM SNAGEM' emblazoned across the shoulders with commemorative patches for various crimes ironed on wherever there was room.

"Don't you mean 'medieval'?" the mook with the vaguely potato shaped head and a pair of black circular sunglasses asked from the back of the group as Rob scrambled to the relative safety of his herd.

Any illusion of affability was long fucking gone from my expression, instead leaving something behind that had gotten me a very wide berth in high school… along with more than a few 'requests' to go to the school counselor's office. It wasn't bad work for a teenage girl well on her way to qualifying for disability support for both mental and physical reasons and applying those same mannerisms to a body that was capable of lifting a motorcycle with only the slightest difficulty just made them more effective. "No. Medieval is what happens when I decide to use _props_ , little man, and I'm _pretty_ sure you're don't wanna hang around for that. Now get while the getting is still good."

Mr. Potato Head was the first to bolt, with his other buddy not too far behind. The unfortunate Rob lingered just long enough to glare at me – and didn't that just scream 'this isn't over'? – before running after them, leaving a trail of wet footprints behind him.

I watched them run for a moment before turning to the other two. Rui's face seemed fixed in a thoughtful frown while Wes… Wes looked like he couldn't make up his mind on if he was scared, relieved, or amused at what had just happened.

"What was that?" he asked.

"Batman tactics." Whatever fear the two were experiencing was almost immediately replaced by abject confusion at my two-word explanation. I sighed before falling into recitation mode. "To win without fighting is the acme of skill. If someone is too busy pissing themselves in fear to fight you, you win."

All I got was blank stares.

"Sun Tzu? The Art Of War?" I asked, trying to find some thread of understanding. The first part at least was textually accurate – it should have been easy to identify, considering it was one of the most iconic lines of the text regardless of the exact translation.

All I got were blank stares. Nothing.

Does anyone in this party besides me read?

"Anyway, we should probably leave," I said, rubbing a hand on the back of my head as I changed the subject. "Because I think my little display was too close to qualifying as a 'crime' for comfort and I really don't feel like expanding my criminal record right now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited version finished - 9/5/2018
> 
> The intimidation scenes were fun to write, even if this edit took a while to come together.
> 
> A note; Delaine might use the dub names for characters, but these don't always jive with what's canon for this fic (either by having surnames or names from different language versions of the game). I'll try to make it clear who I mean either through description, Delaine doing a mental correct on the name, or point it out in the notes for additional clarity.
> 
> Backley S. Cade (the Third) is known as Es Cade/Evice in the English version of Pokémon Colosseum, while his name is Backley/Wardack in the Japanese version. I pulled on both versions (and the character's backstory with the grandfather founding Phenac) to come up with the name for this fic.
> 
> Rob is known as Wakin in the English version of Pokémon Colosseum. I pulled on the French translation for the name, because the Japanese version calls him Yaccino, which I can't pin down as Italian or 100% made up.
> 
> I stuck with Trudly and Folly... for reasons I'm not entirely sure of. Probably just so I could keep track better. I don't know what I'm doing for Miror B. but 'Mirror Boss' works as a title.


	7. Shadow Rush

I don't know if my temper could ever have been reliably described as 'explosive' in my last life, but in this one, my default emotional state for the last few years had apparently been 'tumultuous and partially pissed'. That could probably be chalked up to 'teenager' and 'the blow-up with Eagun' which, from an adult's point of view, was understandable – I mean, the kid had come _this_ close to throttling a man to death – but could have been handled a lot better than 'I'm not dealing with this, go back to your mom and never speak to me again'.

Compare that to the twenty-something who'd run out of shits to give about people who'd never be pleased somewhere between ages thirteen and fourteen – another odd case of symmetry between the two lives – and you might almost mistake me for 'sedate' when the real diagnosis was 'major depression accompanied by executive dysfunction and exacerbated by an abusive home situation'.

Now, with both of those lives contradicting each other at every turn, I had the fun of oscillating between 'emotionally and mentally exhausted mentally ill adult that hates herself' and 'raging hurricane of everything that could possibly be described as unhappy hates a whole lot of other things' while also making sure that I didn't use any of my abilities to hurt anyone during either of those extremes.

Managing that might have been easier if this world's me hadn't come with muscle power on par with Captain fucking America, because I'm sure as fuck I would have never managed to pick up a motorcycle in my last life without abusing the power of forklift. There was no fucking mystery as to why Wes was seemingly stuck in a state of low-key terror, between that and my introduction via Air Angry.

The fact that I'd since toned that berserker rage down to a low simmer of personal disquiet didn't make him relax either.

I could live with that, I decided as I worked at getting my bike back into running shape again. Maybe not comfortably, but as long as we could bring down Cipher, I didn't much care about 'comfortable'. Besides, it wasn't like he was missing that much anyway.

If there was any good news, it was that my bike survived my bullshit. Not completely unscathed, but that's what I got for deliberately crashing it into sand dune instead of using these things called 'brakes' to bring it to a stop. Nothing a bit of TLC wouldn't fix but that would have to wait until I could get some time to actually give it.

Casting an eye at the lingering Phenac City security forces – oh what _familiar_ white riot gear you have on there, sirs and madam, do I detect Cipher brand? – was enough to tell me that it definitely wasn't going to happen here.

"You two ready to go yet?" I asked the pair as I righted the machine.

Rui nodded though Wes still looked uncertain at his inclusion into our little group. "Where are we headed next?" he asked.

"Pyrite. Would head straight back home, but I need to check over my bike sooner than later," I explained. "Rui, you're riding with Pretty Boy."

"What?" "'Pretty Boy'?"

I folded my arms as I looked down at both of them. This was easy, because despite me only being a hair over five foot six, they were both in the 'what is vertical' part of puberty. "Hey, I call 'em like I see 'em, kid, and those delicate features and silver hair scream 'Pretty Boy' to me. And, to answer your question Rui, I don't want you wiping out with me if my bike's got more wrong with it than I've been able to find."

"I… guess she can sit in the sidecar," Wes finally conceded.

I smiled and then let the expression fall as the security goons made to approach. "Anyway, let's get going before we get arrested for 'disturbing the peace'."

"Oh, that won't be necessary," a cloyingly sweet and harmless voice chimed in from behind me.

On a surface perusal, the man – an obvious politician with a hairline had long since lost the war against male pattern baldness – was harmless. A few inches shorter than me, a hundred pounds heavier, more than a few years on the wrong side of middle-age, and very obviously the kind of small-town politician who got into his position by riding the coattails of someone else, most likely a relative who'd held the position before him.

None of these details were necessarily incorrect, but if this was who I was thought he was – and I was fairly certain on that point –, there were depths below that initial surface image of 'harmless'; depths that ran deep and dark and deadly to those who weren't expecting it.

"My apologies if my security detail disturbed you," Cipher's current leader said pleasantly as he went about the act of Leader of the Lollypop Guild. "We don't get a lot of out of towners around here and there's an expectation for bad behavior from them."

I bet. "Didn't want to ruffle any more feathers than we had to, Mayor –"

"Backley S. Cade," the slime answered in a way that made me half-expect the words 'and I approve this message' to follow. "And it's no trouble at all, seeing as the witnesses were very clear on the fact that it was that pair of ruffians you ran off who were the ones in the wrong."

Hah. Getting us off scot free despite my antics with the motorcycle and the whole 'death threat' thing being a very clear case of reckless endangerment? Or are you more interested in seeing what we do next? The man behind the man was pretty easy to pick out from behind his curtain when you'd read the script in advance.

"Still," I said, drawing on my somewhat limited diplomatic skills. "We should move on before anything else happens. I would hate to trouble you and your security people more than I already have."

Fuck, my dislike wasn't even kind of subtle. It would be even worse if it came across as sarcastic. It was one thing to be a delightful bitch among friends, it was another to flip off the head of an evil organization in his own town.

S. Cade's face didn't even twitch away from that photo-op smile. "Ah, perfectly understandable. I suppose I should bid you a good day, young lady… and remind you that the gates of Phenac City are always open."

Then why would you have gates in the first place? I managed to keep my mouth shut as the politician slash crime boss and his personal brute squad moved back towards the gleaming center of Phenac. I made sure they were entirely out of sight before I turned back to the task at hand.

"Why didn't you want to stay there?" Rui asked me as I pulled my motorcycle out to where Wes had parked his monster of a bike. Damn, that thing was cool and not the pleasant generic kind of cool my own bike was. No, this was 'Escaped from a Final Fantasy game' levels of cool, if slightly less 'voted most likely to explode horribly in the next half hour' than I remembered it being in the game. "The mayor said –"

"Maybe she doesn't trust the mayor, Rui," Wes said as he started dusted a bit of loose sand off of the sidecar the redhead would be riding in, moving a duffle bag that was in the boot to the side as he did so.

I smiled. Smart kid. "Pro tip, Rui; never trust the politico. They almost always have an agenda."

Wes snorted. "'Almost'?"

"Well, there's always the Legendary Honest Politician. Got to be at least one out there somewhere, right?"

"Optimist," he said in the same tone most people said 'idiot'.

I tilted my head to the side and smirked. Most of my bad mood had evaporated in the presence of good banter. "I'd say idealist with depression. Means I think a situation can and can't get worse at the same time, yet no matter what happens I'm usually left disappointed."

"I'd say 'welcome to Orre', but you're too obviously local."

With that, he turned over the ignition of his bike, the massive diesel engine roaring to life before settling into a deep gurgling purr as bluish smoke tinged the air with the smell of pollution.

Ah. Nice.

* * *

 

Pyrite Town was about the closest you could get in Orre to finding a polar opposite to Phenac City without going underground. Where Phenac was a carefully planned and uniform collection of circles and straight lines carved out of fine stone and fountains, Pyrite looked like someone had taken a handful of buildings from seven or eight different miniature sets and thrown them into the far corner of a sandbox.

Adobe huts, layered stone buildings, and repurposed shipping containers lined the streets, the odd fusion between the various categories interrupting any clean listing as just about every structure tried to cover up old damage from wind and wear with coats of colorful paint that faded quickly under the unforgiving desert sun. At the far end of the town, where the canyon finally turned into a solid wall of rock, sat the old Pyrite Mining Building and a huge weathered dome littered with cracks and broken panels.

If not for the many bikes parked all around the town and the people milling around the streets, it would have been easy to mistake the place for a ghost town.

They had parked near an abandoned looking building – well, more abandoned than Pyrite buildings usually looked – after Delaine had parked there first, having arrived ahead of Wes and Rui.

The older girl had already started working on her bike, only pausing to give him a glance as he walked up before resuming her tinkering. On the seat, a Flying-type of some description lay with its wings spread out, soaking up the sunlight while what had to be Delaine's other Pokémon – a Noibat, if Wes remembered his old battered Kalos Pokémon guide right – was nestled on top of her hat.

A Flying-type specialist. Huh. Would have thought she would have been more into Fire, Dragon, or maybe even Fighting based on her personality. Of course, not everyone had much room to choose what Pokémon they ended up with in Orre.

"So what's the itinerary after this?" Wes asked as he slid his visor back up into his hair. The Rui girl was already looking around with wide eyes and an open mouth, which meant trouble if someone friendly didn't keep an eye on her. It was also the kind of trouble Wes would have preferred to avoid.

Delaine leaned back from her work, flexing her shoulders and neck with audible cracks. "Well, after we're done here, we're headed to Chrysoprase. Rui's grandfather is over at Professor Acacia's lab right now looking at a… let's call it an _unusual case_."

"Like what?"

Delaine turned around just far enough to look at him through the corner of her eye. "You ever see a Pokémon go berserk, Wes?" she asked. "I'm not talking like Uproar or Outrage, where they just whale on their opponent for a while before stepping back to do something else. I'm talking out for blood whatever way it can get it, no stops pulled out until it's shoved in a ball, unconscious, or dead."

Despite the dry heat of Orre, Wes felt a cold chill run down his back. That was too close to what he had seen in those Cipher labs to be something as simple as coincidence. "No," he lied as calmly as he could. He wasn't going to implicate himself in this. No, he wanted to be out of Orre sooner than later, thank you. "You found one like that?"

"Yeah and if the person who dumped that Houndour out there hadn't made sure to throw it down a pit when they 'released' it, the next thing I might have found would have been some teeth, pointy end first."

Wes swallowed. "Ah… glad you're alright then."

That brought a wry smirk to Delaine's face, like she _knew_ he was parroting empty platitudes and didn't entirely mean it. "Anyway, this is going to take a while, so why don't you do what you need to while keeping Rui out of trouble? I guarantee that you won't have time to be bored."

* * *

 

Bored, no.

Frustrated and ever so slightly freaked out by all the eyes following them as he tried to do his errands? _**Yes.**_

Pyrite Town had a reputation as a hive of scum and villainy. This wasn't entirely undeserved; the original settlers had been miners and workmen, which meant living rough and being rough enough to handle the desert were part of the job description. Even after the mining venture folded, that aspect of the town remained, trickling down the generations and resolving into a biker culture complete with a thriving – at least by Pyrite standards – market for leather everything.

It didn't exactly mean that everyone that came out of Pyrite was a born criminal. Wes knew that a lot of the trouble within Pyrite itself was usually from some visitor who'd assumed that the rusted little backwater town didn't have a use for things like 'law' and could thus do whatever the hell they wanted.

He'd personally watched one such prick get his ass handed to him by the local police chief about thirty seconds after making a statement to that effect.

Still, when walking the streets of Pyrite Town, it was safer not to draw attention.

Wes fit in easily and he knew it. People from the Under fit in well with their neighbors above… if they bothered to try. Most didn't.

Delaine fit in as well, having that desert-rough edge that marked out someone 'real'. Of course, that rough edge disguised some deeply hidden crazy, but at least it didn't seem like it was going to get unleashed on him anytime soon.

Rui, on the other hand, with her pink boots, pigtails, and wide-eyed stare, stuck out like a sore thumb as she followed him around the town. Already, there were people sizing her up for a battle or an old-fashioned pickpocketing. If not for the presence of Wes, she probably would have been a victim already.

That didn't change the fact that some of the dumber thugs seemed willing to chance Wes anyway. What were the odds that some of Team Snagem were hiding out here?

"Don't look like such a tourist," he told her again.

"How am I supposed to do that? I've never been here before," she said, looking all around like the dustbin town was something fascinating. "Agate Village is nothing like this and I never saw anything like this in Unova."

"Why were you in Unova?"

"Pokémon journey. Mostly just looking around instead of taking a gym challenge, but I did get a couple of badges." She sighed. "Guess I was just playing the part of tourist there too."

"What's it like there?"

Rui blinked before pressing her hand to her chin. "Oh, there's a lot more green. Lots of rivers. Lots of bridges. More Pokémon, too. Taller buildings in most towns, skyscrapers taller than anything in Neo City. There's a small desert in the middle, but it's nothing compared to…"

We snorted. "Yeah, I don't imagine it would," he said as they went into a clothing shop. Orre's desert almost counted as its own ocean, except deader. You only had to look at it to know it could swallow a town whole if the wind blew the right way. For all he knew, it had.

The shop itself was visually unimpressive, being little more than a shipping container turned into a sort of walk-in closet with racks of leather jackets, coats, and vests taking up most of the space while the service desk lurked in the blind spot behind where the door opened.

From the way the shotgun was mounted on the wall next to it, it was clear that it was a _very_ deliberate choice of location.

"Watcha lookin' for?" the old woman said, casting a critical eye over the pair, though it seemed to settle on Rui more than Wes.

"Need a coat," Wes replied just as curtly. "Anything in my size?"

The critical eye was back, though this time it had the air of a professional tailor rather than the suspicious edge it had come with the first time. "Might have somethin' close," she finally decided. "Color or cut a problem?"

"So long as it covers me and isn't red, I'll live," he said.

The old woman nodded, giving them one last look before disappearing into the back of the store. If anything happened to the merchandise left unattended, Wes didn't doubt for a second that she'd hunt them down personally.

"What's wrong with red?" Rui asked.

Because red would mean he was still wearing Snagem colors. "Just don't like it," he lied, shoving his hands into his pants pockets the best he could.

"This fine with ya?" the old woman asked as she threw something long and blue at him.

Wes lifted up the coat. It was long, blue, and fancy. The way it was ribbed with black stretch material around the ribs and hips, it was probably designed with a woman's figure in mind. Of course, considering the way he was built, it would fit perfectly. "Yeah, but what's it gonna set me back?"

"18,000." Her wrinkled mouth twisted up in a nearly toothless and patently unfriendly smile. "And I don't take plastic."

Ugh. There went eating anything that wasn't cup ramen or crackers for the next month, unless he found some way to rake in some money to make up for the loss. Still, it looked like a good coat and going without it would be risking more than just a case of chronic bad sunburn. He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and pulled out the appropriate number of bills. "Fine."

The old woman nodded as she took his money, flipping through the worn bills with a practiced ease as she confirmed the price she gave was the price paid. "Pleasure doin' business with ya."

As soon as they were free of the shop, Wes slipped on the coat, shrugging his shoulders into the right fit before zipping it up. Sure, it hurt a little where it ran over his healing sunburn, but it also felt _right_ somehow in the way it just slid around his body. Like it had been tailored especially for him.

"Ah, you look so cool!" Rui said. "All dramatic and windswept!"

Wes resisted the urge to sigh. "Okay, okay. Anyway, that was the last thing I needed to get, so we might as well go back to your crazy…" Was that Delaine girl even related to this kid? "Whatever, I don't want to get punched in half just because I let you get mugged."

"She's not crazy!"

"She jumped off a moving motorcycle just so she could attack one of the guys who kidnapped you faster. That kind of stunt ain't the action of a stable personality," he pointed out. Hell, he'd probably be having nightmares about _Gonzap_ showing up to do that to him. "It's not like I can just forget that, even if she's been acting mostly normal since then."

Not that he trusted even that. There were these _looks_ she was giving him every time he lied, like she knew what he was doing and was almost amused by it.

Almost.

Yeah, it was better than her being angry enough to knock his block off, which would make sense if she really did know that he used to be a Pokémon thief, but it still put him on edge. She knew something and was watching him with that something in mind, weighing everything he did in her head.

And hell if Wes wanted to know what she'd do if he was found wanting.

Rui apparently didn't see it that way, crossing her arms and stalking down the street towards where they'd left Delaine to work on her bike.

Apparently a separation of about fifteen feet was enough for one of the locals to think that he could finally get away with a shakedown.

The guy had green hair and was wearing the kind of jumpsuit and goggles that normally came out of professional mechanics, but Wes doubted that he was employed if he had the time to stalk a pair of teenage tourists around town.

"Looks like it's my lucky day, catchin' a pair of out-of-towners like yourselves," he said, bouncing a Pokéball up and down in his hand as he walked closer. "And trainers too. Makes taking your money a lot easier and more legal-like."

"If you can win," Wes replied, pulling Zener and Chaya's balls off of his belt.

"Oh, I think I will," the green-haired guy replied as he unleashed a Machop and a Ralts.

A Fighting and a Psychic-type… this was going to be almost _too_ easy, Wes thought as his Umbreon and Espeon took up position across from them. If his opponent had realized the massive disadvantage leveled against his side of the field, he wasn't acknowledging it.

"Zener, use Psychic! Chaya, Bite!"

His Umbreon bolted forward, dodging the Machop's clumsy attempt to protect its teammate and sinking its fangs into one of the Ralts' horns. The Psychic-type cried out as it jerked away, loosing a Psybeam in Chaya's direction as it did.

The Psychic attack was ultimately wasted on the Dark-type Pokémon, who returned the favor with an unforgiving Pursuit.

On the other side of the battle, the Machop was trying and failing to land a hit on Zener. The Espeon kept playing with its opponent, dancing and weaving around its wild punches.

"Stop playing around, Zener!" Wes called out to his Pokémon.

The Espeon gave him a smug glance before jumping up over the Machop's head and fighting off a Psybeam at the back of the Fighting-type's head. The Machop was knocked out instantly and as soon as Zener was back on the ground, there was a fresh swagger to its mincing walk as it returned to its trainer.

Wes couldn't quite fight back his smirk. Showoff. He turned his attention to his opponent, who was visibly grinding his teeth. "Hey, you got anything else or do I get my money now?"

"Yeah, I got somethin' else," the green-haired guy said, returning his passed out Pokémon to their balls before pulling out another. "You ready to go down, punk?"

"If you couldn't do it with two, what do you think you're gonna manage with one?"

The Pokeball was thrown anyway, releasing pale red light that quickly congealed into the sinuous form of a… Furret. Sure, it was a surprisingly serious looking Furret, but still.

"That's your secret weapon?" Wes asked incredulously, ignoring the way that Rui suddenly jerked back. "A fucking Furret? You're throwing an oversized weasel at me as your trump card? Are you _fucking_ –"

Before he could continue the tirade, the Furret abruptly rushed at Zener. The Espeon only just managed to move out of the direct line of attack, taking the brunt of the damage to its back left leg.

The Furret, on the other hand, kept on going, only stopping when a building got in the way of its wild rush. As it pulled itself out of the plaster it had knocked loose, Wes switched to business mode. "Zener! Use Helping Hand! Chaya; Take Down!"

Chaya, bolstered by its sibling's backup, slammed the Furret into the cracked adobe clay of the building it had run into after its last attack. This time, the Normal-type didn't get back up and Wes would swear that he heard the other trainer grinding his teeth in frustration.

"Seven rounds in the Colosseum for this?" the green-haired guy yelled, kicking some loose dust over his fallen Pokémon. "'Shadow Pokémon' are superior in all ways, my ass!"

As the moron lined up his foot to kick the Furret, Rui ran out in front of him, ramming her shoulder into his side.

"You don't get to be cruel to your Pokémon just because you're a bad trainer!" she snapped at the trainer as he lay in the Pyrite Town dust. Wes half expected her to start planting those pink boots into the hapless loser's ribs as a very painful sort of punctuation. "You pick up a Pokéball, you're responsible for taking care of the creature you put in it!"

"You want it so bad, you can have it, you lunatic bit–," he cut off as a boot that very much wasn't pink planted itself on the side of his head.

"Go ahead and finish that sentence," Delaine said, her voice as flat as Wes had ever heard it and as inviting as the prospect of a hard fall onto cold stone. "Because that might just be the thing to break what just might be the last straw I have right now."

To Wes, it looked like the guy was settling for a cold sweat though more under the pressure of the threat rather than the boot itself, seeing as the girl was only applying the lightest pressure possible pressure to his face.

Delaine looked up at Wes. "Let me guess; she wandered off without thinking about it and found a ne'er-do-well with a deficit in the brain cell department."

"…I'm guessing that's how she got kidnapped, right?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, you better believe it. Kid goes off to Unova for a few years and loses all her common sense."

"I'm standing right here," Rui said, picking up the battered Furret in her arms. "Delaine, can you get this one's ball?"

Delaine took her boot off the unlucky bastard's face before leaning down to pick up the empty ball he'd dropped. "Now, seeing as you didn't have anything particularly _nice_ about that Pokémon, you're not going to make a fuss about us taking it off your hands, right?" she asked, pinning the unfortunate idiot with a bored stare.

He quickly shook his head.  
"Smart choice. And that's why we're going to let you keep your pocket change."

She turned to leave, only to pause. "Oh, and Cail."

The green-haired kid stiffened.

"I hear anything about you mistreating any other Pokémon, I'm not going to be as friendly about it as I'm being right now. You get me?" With that she jerked her head to the side. "C'mon, Wes."

He'd fallen in with another set of gangsters, he just knew it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got to this chapter and realized I hadn't had a single fucking Pokémon battle (the Whismur thing didn't even count) in four whole chapters of story. Decided to fix that while also advancing plot (yay!).
> 
> Backley S. Cade is Es Cade/ Evice. The 'Backley' part is from his original Japanese name and I was just like… 'yeah, Backley S. Cade would be the kind of name you slap on a politician'. I don't know what his Cipher 'handle' would be, because both 'Evice' and 'Wardack' are both kind of… not great. Eh, I'll worry about it later.
> 
> Cail is the green-haired guy and Delaine was just assuming that his name stayed the same (or was close enough where it'd be mistaken as a 'Rickey/Mickey' thing) so she could scare the shit out of him more effectively. Obviously, it worked.
> 
> …I think that at some point in this fic (probably towards the end) I'm going to have the main cast go to Alola and get completely weirded out by things like safety equipment for riding Pokémon, the overall friendliness of the locals, Team Skull being treated as scum when they're pretty much normal if slightly obnoxious people (from Pyrite Town or the Under at the absolute worst) by Orre standards, and like half of the island challenges (like battling they get, but collecting random shit in the woods and taking photographs registers as ?).
> 
> Progress on my Pokémon game: Everyone's ass has been whooped, except the Battle Tree and Gary motherfucking Oak (I kicked Red's ass instead). I am Champion of Alola. I have the Team Skull Shirt (which probably has I Only Beat All Of Your Asses And Your Boss's Ass On Like Five Different Occasions And I Still Have To Pay For This Stupid Shirt? written on it in a fabric sharpie). I have millions of monies (well, one million money and change) and I am 74% done with the Pokédex. All the Legendaries are mine (except the Sun-exclusive Solgaleo) and I've got all my Eeveelutions.
> 
> Yes, I got a Mimikyu. Two actually. Her name is Clotho and the other one is Mysterio. They are the cutest. Currently I'm on a quest for a Shiny Ditto (it's not going well) in between trying to complete my Dex (which will eventually require someone with Sun).
> 
> I'm also improving my Wonder Trade karma by releasing any useless Com Mons I get and training up Pokémon that evolve via trade, but only the ones that do it without items for now, because I don't have enough either of the Pokémon or the item in question. Stupid King's Rock. If you ended up with a Machamp named JOHN CENA (all caps) that originally belonged to a 'Raine', that was me. Most of the stuff I've shipped out has been Haunter and Machoke (along with some other things, like the Shellos named '….slimey').
> 
> Other highlights of my Boxes / history in the game:
> 
> My beautiful Noivern I got as a Noibat through Wonder Trade.
> 
> Ditty the Ditto (not Shiny but I love him).
> 
> Quatre the Gengar (from farming the fuck out of Haunter in the creepy abandoned store).
> 
> Puka my Alolan Raichu (so cute!).
> 
> Basement the Guzzlord (not the Cheeto-dust Shiny version, but still okay).
> 
> The Pheromosas that I threw out into Wonder Trade that I named 'Snoot' and 'Just Beachy' ('Just Peachy' meets 'Bitchy'. I'm so smart.).
> 
> The Makuhita and the Hariyama I named 'Hairy Momma' and 'Hairy Mama' before dumping them on random strangers through the magic of Wonder Trade. This is probably why my Wonder Trade Karma is bad in the first place.
> 
> Random Decidueye that evolved from a Rowlet I got through Wonder Trade (have I mentioned I love Wonder Trade? I do, even with all the Pikpik and Poliwag I keep getting. I just release them rather than dumping them back in there tho).
> 
> Crash the Cosmoem (going to try to make him into a Solgaleo but need to find someone trustworthy with Pokémon Sun. For now, he is a sleepy boy).
> 
> Nebula the Lunala (does anyone remember Crash Nebula? Like that's just one of those things that managed to stick in my head despite everything else that ever happened on Fairly Odd Parents).
> 
> Shiny Psyduck named Howard (Howard the Duck). He's been Wonder Traded away to… someone in France, I think.
> 
> Shiny Krokorok named Prada. Got Wonder Traded away because he was ugly af.
> 
> Lokisenna the Zygarde (like one of four or five things I didn't name after comic books or cartoons. Only realized that I should have spelled it as 'Lokasenna' just now. I'm only 8 Cells away from 100% Forme).
> 
> Rac Shade the Necrozma (named after Shade the Changing Man. Hunt down the Wikipedia article or the DC Nation animated short on Youtube, NOT GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH because some of the comics are really nightmare inducing and I don't want to traumatize anyone on accident).
> 
> Anyway, hopefully I'll have another chapter uploaded before too long. Reviews and feedback are appreciated!


	8. Rest

The alleged 'Shadow Pokémon' was an unusual subject to observe, even through the glass of the sealed room it was being kept in. When it dropped the overtly aggressive behavior, Eagun had expected a turn for the better.

His expectation was quickly dashed.

It refused to eat, barely drank, and never turned its back on any human that entered the room they had put it in. While those things weren't entirely out of line for both wild and abused Pokémon, most of them would have relaxed a bit by now, if only to get some sleep.

Instead, the Houndour simply did its best to maintain a consistent level of aggression, even as its strength slipped away from lack of food, water, and sleep. Really, the dose of Sleeping Powder they had thrown over it was almost overkill considering that it was barely on its feet to begin with, but it did allow Gregory to hook it up to an IV line until it woke up again and attempted to tear it out before they could remove the needle safely.

While that had bought it some time, Eagun was finding himself questioning if it was worth it.

Whatever had happened to it, deliberately or not, had mangled the Pokémon's soul. If abuse left a 'bruise' on the spirit, the Houndour's was battered beyond all recognition; a seemingly endless stream of negative emotions hemorrhaging inside of it over and over.

Right now, it was in one of its quieter phases, curled up in the far corner of its isolation room under a chair. Its Aura was still shadowy, yes, but it was a half-natural gloom that could probably be classified as 'extreme depression'. Without anything to direct its negativity on, be it a living creature or a situation, the Pokémon's negative energy turned inward.

Breaking that pattern would require… delicacy, work, no small bit of luck, and time.

Eagun Logos did not have the luxury of time. An Aura guardian did not get much in the way of vacation days, especially when he was the only fully trained one available in the region. The fact that the forest he was responsible for protecting was popular with poachers didn't help, though the Mirage Taiga's general impenetrability and hatred of technological navigation did.

Gregory… could possibly handle it on his own. The man had a way with Pokémon that had only become more refined as the years had passed and, if anything, working with the Shadow Pokémon fell under his purview anyway. If Delaine's assistance was worth as much as he insisted, then his chances of success only grew, though how much that counted for considering that they were fairly low to begin with…

"Logos. Stop thinking."

Eagun raised his eyebrows as he looked over at his old friend. "Too loud for you?"

"Too fucking negative," Gregory snapped back. "Where you get off on being an Aura expert when all you do is harsh everyone's mellow. I don't know why everyone accuses me of having the bad attitude when you're the one who always comes up with the worst case scenario."

"First of all, I'm pretty sure that you're not using that phrase correctly. Second, I try to evaluate all possible outcomes of the situation –" he said.

"And then jump to the worst of the available conclusions," the Pokémon professor finished, turning the majority of his attention back to his computer screen, though he was still taking breaks for the odd disapproving look. "Like assuming a kid with mental illness is going to go bad because they flipped out in a way that wasn't easy to dismiss as mere immaturity."

And there they were going again.

"Regardless of if her attack was provoked or not, the fact that she went to such extreme lengths to inflict injury on another person cannot be dismissed. It is one thing to ward poachers away from the Taiga, it is quite another to put them in the hospital," Eagun replied, crossing his arms. "You know that I have a very delicate relationship with Detective Sherles. It's only because of the absence of Rangers in Orre that I have so much leeway with the law in the first place. Having any loose cannons operating in my name would see that taken away very quickly."

"People go missing in that fucking forest all the time, everyone knows it. Some even do it on purpose. Take advantage of that."

"I'm not becoming a serial killer because you think it'd be a good idea, Gregory."

"Conservation efforts. Fertilizer."

"Life-time sentence in prison."

"It's not murder if a Trevenant does it."

"That is true. If I allowed the local Trevenant population to carry away every poacher and illegal logger I was aware of, it would only be _negligent homicide_."

Behind them, Eagun was aware of Sorcha becoming more and more desperate in their attempts to become one with whichever wall was furthest away from the 'argument'. Not that it showed on the surface; this apprentice kept all their emotions contained, their only tells visible through Aura fluctuations and vocal tone. Well… most of the time. The rather one-sided rivalry with Delaine was a new and somewhat unpleasant development, one that Eagun couldn't deny his part in developing.

Had it been wrong to use Delaine as a cautionary tale? Maybe. Or maybe the mistake had been in only sharing the negative aspects of his former apprentice.

Temper and control problems aside, Delaine _did_ care deeply about Pokémon and was correspondingly good at handling them, mostly because she approached them as beings of equal intelligence rather than as simple beasts. Trainers with that kind of mentality could befriend even Legendaries under the right circumstances.

On the other hand, her being a good trainer didn't automatically make her a good Aura guardian. Her skills were average at best, which combined with her tendency to act on her first and worst impulse when placed into stressful situations equaled a potential disaster anytime things started to go pear-shaped.

On the third hand, that evaluation was almost four years old and Eagun had helped raise enough teenagers to know that their personalities were in flux, like a young tree. While he could guess at the general shape of its final form from the direction it was growing, there was no way to know for sure until it actually reached that point. The fact that Delaine's 'tree' had taken a strange bend somewhere in between his telling her to go back home and now… well, that changed things, which meant recalculating his estimation of the girl.

"So what happened after I dropped Delaine's apprenticeship?" Eagun asked.

Gregory looked up from his computer screen. "At first? I didn't have much to do with her, beyond when I called Delora out for an assist. Kid was a teenager; sullen, bad-tempered, didn't say much beyond 'ugh', 'I guess', and 'don't know'. Got pretty close to getting in a fist fight after one of my assistants turned a Trapinch over on its back for fun. Can't say it made me happy myself, but I settled for firing him instead of punching his fucking lights out. She smoothed out a bit after that once she got into mechanics, but she's been doing a lot better lately. Much more personable."

"Is this by common definition of the term or yours?"

The professor grinned. "Hah. Both, I guess. Probably chipped more into her sense of humor than most people might have liked, but hey, Delaine's one of my kind."

"A prickly misanthrope or generalist asshole?"

"Hah. Better with Pokémon than she is with people. She's good enough to get by in human society, but you get a feeling that she's running off a script sometimes. Doesn't quite _get_ them, you know? Knows that she's tripping over social convention, but can't get a pin on exactly what she's doing wrong, can't do anything to fix it, and gets frustrated trying to figure out _why_ ," Gregory said with a shrug. "Probably some kind of mental illness. Anxiety, autism, could be any number of things. Not like we have anyone who could formally diagnose it out here."

That was the first bit of guilt slinging that had actually stung and his old friend hadn't even been trying. Thankfully, the sound of an engine – wait, _two_ engines, one significantly louder and rougher than the other – approaching the lab cut off any new avenues the conversation could take.

Eagun opened up his Aura sense and immediately relaxed. Yes, that was Rui coming down the road, Delaine riding just far enough ahead of her to place the older girl on an entirely separate vehicle. The presence of another, unknown person right next to his granddaughter was a bit troubling, but whoever they were, their dusty white Aura held nothing immediately dangerous within it.

"Using your hocus to check on my assistant again?" Gregory asked, prompting the Aura master to open his eyes.

Eagun raised an eyebrow. "So she's _your_ assistant now?"

The Pokémon professor snorted. "She does my errands, occasionally brings me take-out, and I throw money at her for it. I'd like to see what _your_ definition of the job is," he said before sneaking a glance through the window of the isolation room. "I'm just making sure you know where the fucking boundary is."

"Don't worry. Even if I thought Delaine was a good fit for Aura guardian, I wouldn't ask her to return. The bridge has been burnt. Do with her what you will."

Ignoring Gregory's mutter of "She's a teenager, not a fucking secondhand sofa," Eagun walked towards the glass doors leading out of the lab and watched Delaine's motorcycle come around the bend in the road, only to be followed by a… vehicle so ugly and unwieldy that the Aura guardian felt unsafe just knowing that it existed on the same continent as him.

The fact that he could very clearly see Rui riding in the sidecar of that gasoline-powered nightmare didn't exactly help.

Delaine parked her motorcycle, allowing him a very clear look at the places where its paint had been stripped off by… sand? Stone? Either way, it spoke of a wipeout of some description and the fact that its rider seemed in fine form raised more questions.

"Everything went well?" Eagun asked.

Delaine's look turned shifty for a moment as she fumbled with her pockets before finally shoving her hands into their depths. "There were a few… problems," she admitted, still not making eye contact.

Eagun raised an eyebrow.

"…Rui would probably be the one to talk to," Delaine finished before quickly walking into the lab like she couldn't put enough space between them.

Well, that was slightly better than their last conversation, if the fact that she'd used more than two words per response was an applicable meter stick.

* * *

It said too much about me that avoiding an extended conversation with someone outside of my day-to-day life felt more like dodging a bullet than any of the other stupid reckless shit I'd done in the last two days. Two days. Fuck. More had happened in the last two days than in the last five years of my original life.

But that's what my 'patron' wanted. Action. Danger. Drama. Suspense. Everything and everything that could be considered 'entertainment'. There'd probably be more messes like this than slow days in my future, which was a problem for someone who was usually some variation of tired.

As I pushed open the lab doors, I grimaced as the implications of that combined with what little I knew about the future. This was… the intro phase. The training levels, where you get introduced to the main cast, the controls, and the plot. We'd only 'collected' two Shadow Pokémon and hadn't even met a single admin yet.

If I was going to stick with this mess – which I was, damn my malformed sense of personal responsibility –, I had all of that, Backley Escade, and maybe the sequel to survive five years down the line. The only good-ish thing I could think of happening was that we might just run into Celebi… which I'd already kind of done in this life already. It was a passing encounter on par with most Bigfoot videos and from about thirty feet away in a forest where visibility went to die, sure, but considering that 'Mythic' Pokémon were usually called that for a reason, it was a lot closer than most people would ever get.

Heck, it was a lot closer than I'd ever gotten in the games, where Legendary encounters were literally scripted events and getting a Mythic Legendary was simply a matter of going to the right store at the right time… which, to be perfectly honest, I never did. Between not being allowed to leave the house as a kid, being however many years behind in tech thanks to budget as an adult, or just having anxiety about being outside in general, a lot of stuff didn't happen for me.

I sighed. Well, it sure seemed to be happening now.

"Long trip?" Professor Acacia asked from behind his desk, his attention seemingly on the screen of his computer rather than me.

My face twitched towards a shit eating grin, only to fail against my high levels of 'done'. "Oh, you have no idea."

"Spill the fucking beans then. Aren't kids your age supposed to be all about the gossip?"

"Cliff notes version; I went, got Rui, Rui got kidnapped, I got her un-kidnapped, acquired and traumatized a new friend during that, went to Pyrite Town, stole some dude's Pokémon, came back here."

Credit to the professor, the only change in his expression was a raised eyebrow at the mention of the stolen Pokémon.

I jerked my thumb back over my shoulder. "Rui has it right now, probably will bring it in for you to look over. It's another Shadow Pokémon. She's knows more about that bit than me; I came in after most of it was done. Stepped on a dude's face, maybe made him pee himself a little. As you do."

There was a beat of silence that slowly stretched into a yawning void.

"Is there anything else I can do around here?" I asked, trying not to come across as antsy. This was a bit of a trick considering that every part of me wanted to do its own awkward shuffle. "Y'know, that way you don't have to call me from home if you need me for anything right away…?"

"Nah, it's been slow other than what you already know about. Wouldn't mind having a look at your Pokédex, since I didn't get the chance yesterday, but that doesn't require you specifically," Acacia said, picking up a file of loose papers and flipping through them. "If you want to make an attempt with that Houndour you found, you can, but if you can get it to do anything but snarl at you, you'll be head and shoulders above anything we've gotten."

Well, it was better than sitting out here waiting to fuck up. "Which room?" I asked.

* * *

I hate little white rooms. It was one of those… one of those holdovers from my childhood; a seemingly innocent thing that would never fail to set me on edge, like cookie-cutter country music, diesel engines, and the screech of rusty farm equipment. Any place I ended up staying in that came close to that description, I usually collected a mess of blankets in bold, bright, unmissable colors to tangle into a nest that would break up the maddening nothingness that surrounded me at whenever I tried to sleep.

In the places where I couldn't change it, I simply had to close my eyes and try to ignore it.

From the looks of things, the Houndour lying in the corner had a pretty similar opinion of this one. Despite being in a place that was both bright and unfamiliar, it was very pointedly keeping its eyes closed, barely even cracking them open to see who had come into the room.

I closed the door before sitting down in the corner opposite the Pokémon.

The Houndour cracked its eyes open and growled quietly at me. It wasn't necessarily weak, but it didn't seem to be a straight statement of aggressive intent either, which matched what I was getting from its Aura.

"I'm just staying over here," I promised, keeping my tone calm and level. "No need to fuss about me."

I then settled into my half-assed sukhasana, closed my eyes, and worked on clearing my Aura.

At least it was quiet here. Probably sound proofed too, since I couldn't hear any telltale buzz of activity outside. Part of me was a little paranoid about that, but I'd overheard enough conversations about me to know it was sometimes better not to know.

It made it easier to sort out my emotions at least, though it wasn't ever as neat a process as some people liked to imagine. There were no boxes or files here – that were reserved for memories proper – but a river which flowed around me, carrying different vibes along it like leaves and other debris. Right now, it was a cool forest brook, moving neither fast nor slow and only deep enough to come halfway up my thighs even though I was sitting in its deepest section. On a bad day, it could be like trying to fight against the force of a flash flood, where only the thing I could do was hold on and try not to get swept away.

I had more days like that than this, I think.

The disquieting thought seemed to make the water level dip lower, the river starting to run with black silt. Guilt. Almost as bad as anger, though in a different way. Guilt and everything else that numbed out other feelings always brought the 'flow' to a slow, sometimes to where the river was only a trickle.

And with Aura, where the ability to focus emotion into action, only have a trickle to fuel every trick you had up your sleeve was almost as bad as having no Aura at all.

One more way my father was fucking me up years after the fact, I guess.

I let my fingers trace through the silt, feeling it out. Of course I felt bad about letting Rui end up in so much danger, but there were other aspects to it. My personality from my first life had been wired for shame, after all, and it only took a light touch to set it rolling on that subject for hours on end.

Right now, I think the main thing I was feeling guilty about was 'stealing' another person's life.

Sure, she was 'me' in a sense, but it was only a matter of DNA and name that made that so. Nobody had called me out on the personality change, but it was only a matter of time. The Delaine that this world knew was a bright star of energy, regardless of if she was angry or happy. Me? I was the picture that accompanied the phrase 'woke up tired'. It probably had something to do with the depression. Or maybe the PTSD. Or maybe the chronic pain issues. Or maybe all and a few more things shoved into a blender set to 'puree'.

No matter what the cause was, there was the problem that every single secondhand emotion I had concerning everyone this world's Delaine knew was… stained. Faded. Like an old photograph kept in poor conditions, the colors fading out and the finer details sometimes disappearing entirely. Where 'I' had adored everything about my starter, I now felt like I was trying to appreciate Leven from the far side of a fish tank. I... there was an affection there, yes, but it was awkward, like an overly fragile vase that didn't quite fit in my hands.

Depression was another likely suspect there, but maybe it was just me with my broken personality, overlaying everything with a thick veneer of my own problems. I was literally built to hate myself.

I sighed as the water level dropped again, losing its comfortable clear coolness to become the sort of cold grey slurry that helped make winter the worst of all seasons. This wasn't helping.

Something good. Something… ah. Barbara the Noibat was good. Helping a Pokémon that was lost and scared just because it was there, that was proof that I wasn't awful. Plus, she was cute as hell and it was really fun just playing with her and Leven.

The stream picked up some heat and momentum, the silt falling away.

Uh, what else… I helped people out in town just as well as the other me did! I helped protect Rui, I helped save the Houndour and that Furret from Pyrite Town. Those were good things that I didn't use 'my' past to coast by on. That was all me.

The stream was back to its burbling neutral self, if now slightly warmer and sunnier than before.

Before I could think about what to do next, a small warm presence took up position by my waking self's side.

I opened my eyes and stole a surprised glance down at the Houndour.

"Hi."

The Pokémon cracked open an eye to glance at me. "Hrr."

We sat there for a while before I decided to take a gamble. I reached over to rub behind its ear.

The Houndour initially cringed away from the contact before realizing it wasn't violence. That didn't make it relax by very many degrees, but it did stop bristling and growling, so I guessed I could mark it as a win.

I decided to go a little further, moving to scratch down its neck. Apparently that was the wrong thing to do, because the Houndour bit down on my finger. It wasn't a hard bite, but it was a clear message that I doing nearly as well as I'd initially assumed.

I sighed. So much for that initial assumption that I had won some diplomacy points. Well, no reason not to keep trying.

"That make you feel better?" I asked.

"Rrrr."

"Probably feels weird, having someone be nice to you after everything that's happened to you. I can imagine you don't trust that kindness very much. Feels like a trap." I pressed gently on its jaw, loosening its weak grip on my finger before going back to scratching behind its ear. Stick with what works. "I get that. Trust is hard to give when it's been abused. When you hide your heart away to keep it from being hurt again."

The Houndour looked away. "Hnnn."

"I'm not asking you to trust me. If you want to, you can. I'm not going to demand you give me something when I haven't earned. I'm just asking if you're willing to try someday with someone."

The Houndour didn't reply – and why would I expect it to? I didn't speak Pokémon. But all the same, it didn't move away either.

The sunshine warm glow of happiness washing through my Aura did a very good job of drowning out any lingering feelings of guilt as I leaned back against the wall and slid into a light doze.

* * *

Professor Acacia stepped away from the observation window, giving a small nod of approval to his on-and-off assistant despite her being in no position to appreciate it. Her approach had been far from standard and took nearly no safety precautions beyond letting the Pokémon define its own boundaries, but he couldn't quite find it in him to argue with the results. The Houndour had relaxed enough to that it was actually tolerating a human touch – if only on its own terms – which could mean that it would eventually start relaxing around them in general.

Or it meant that its tentative trust was reserved for Delaine exclusively. Either way, it was an improvement on the Pokémon not trusting anyone at all.

Now for the next crisis.

Eagun had brought his granddaughter into his lab and now the girl was bouncing around nervously, the soles of her boots squeaking with every movement. In her hands, she held a Pokéball.

The second Shadow Pokémon. Great.

Curbing the urge to curse for once in his life, Acacia settled for a dramatic glance at the young teen. "So I hear you've got something for me to look at."

Rui nodded as she held the ball out. "It was hurt during the fight, so it needs –"

"Hey, I'm the professor here. Release it and I'll figure it out from there."

The girl looked uncertain but she complied, opening the Pokéball so the red-white energy could come out and take the shape of a Pokémon.

The Furret looked around startled for a moment before it tried to make a dash for the floor, with only Eagun's quick reaction keeping it in place. Still, it was only a matter of time before the Pokemon slipped loose or managed to sink its teeth in somewhere.

So that meant extreme measures.

"Rowdy little weasel, aren't you?" Acacia asked as he grabbed a sedative. He pulled the needle clear of its sheath and tested it. "Eagun –"

"Already on it," his old friends said as he shoved the Pokémon's head to the table while his other arm tightened its grip around the furry animal's middle. While it wasn't a position that could be maintained safely for any party involved, it did give them enough time to do something that would make this task a whole lot easier.

The Furret's struggles cut off as the sedative started working, the ferocious attempts to escape winding down to weak wiggles and then a deep sleep.

"The moment it acts like it's going to wake up, apply the Sleep Powder. Less chance of a bad reaction," Acacia ordered as he started pulling Potions and other Pokémon first aid tools out of his pockets. It looked like typical battle exhaustion, though the selection of abrasions implied that things had gotten a little more intense than most battles did.

"Delaine trying to work with the Houndour?" Eagun asked as he brought different jars of salve over to the operating table.

The Pokémon professor grabbed one, unscrewing it deftly before digging a glob of the concentrated Oran berry salve out with his fingers. "Mmm. I think they're both taking a nap."

The Aura master shook his head, though his expression was lightly bemused. "Thought I picked up on something like that coming from that way."

"…there's a nap Aura?"

"I've had enough kids and grandkids to tell you that there is _absolutely_ a nap Aura."

"I'm surrounded by _crazy people_ ," the white haired kid muttered.

Gregory Acacia rolled his eyes. Drama queen couldn't even take a little banter. "Kid, you live in a world where people's pets can knock down buildings and shoot laser beams out of their asses. You're crazy just by being _born_ here."

He finished applying the blue paste to the bruised Furret. "Alright, girl; I'm taking you to the free observation room. Sit with it while it sleeps, that way it gets used to your scent, but once it starts acting like it's waking up, give it space. If it acts like it's going to attack you –."

Rui's hand dropped to a Pokéball just visible under her jacket. "I know."

"Just don't do anything you don't have to. This medicine doesn't come cheap, takes weeks to come in, and I've only got so much supply on hand," Acacia said as he screwed the jar shut. He jerked his thumb back towards the rear of the lab. "Just check the windows. The one that doesn't have anyone in it is the one you want."

The white haired boy seemed to be considering making a run for the exit, because he jumped slightly when the professor's eyes shifted over to him.

"As to you… there's a cot over in that corner. You look like you can use it."

The boy's cringe faded and he awkwardly reached down to his belt. "Uh…"  
Acacia found himself rolling his eyes again at the boy's drama. Kid might have looked slick, but hell if he could walk the walk. "I'll look after your Pokémon while you're out. Might as well get some use out of the rest of these supplies."

"But–"

"I'm sure that Gregory won't make off with your Pokémon while you're not looking, Wes," Eagun said, looking a lot more amused by the boy's skittishness than Acacia was. "Besides, he wouldn't get far without his walking stick."

Acacia lunged forward as his friend picked up his staff. "Don't you dare –"

Eagun twirled the long piece of wood around before settling it against his shoulder, his fingers reaching up to hook around its crook. "Suits me a bit better than you, doesn't it?" he asked.

The professor was about to start snapping off insults when a couple Pokéballs clunked onto the surface of the exam table.

"The Espeon is Zener, the Umbreon is Chaya," the boy explained before casting a glance back at the cot. "If you do anything to them, I'll –"

"Kid, you're in the same building as three Aura nuts, two of which will kick my ass before you'd even dream about specifics," Acacia pointed out, jerking his head towards Eagun as means of explanation. His old friend simply settled for a tired smile. "You've got nothing to worry about from this gnarled old tree."

The boy didn't look entirely convinced until his eyes slid over in the direction Delaine had gone. Then, he took to the cot without complaint.

As you do, Acacia thought with a small smirk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh sorry about the long delay. There's just been… a lot of creative block in my life. Probably because my depression was acting up really bad to the point that I was wondering if the rest of my life was going to be spent in that shitty state.
> 
> In other news, I managed to annoy myself by looking up Mary Sue Litmus tests. Most of them are very barebones and rely too much on clichés rather than sticking with issues like 'does this character break the rules of the story?' or 'do lucky coincidences, prophecies, and/or random power-ups have a thirty car pile-up where ever this character is concerned?'.
> 
> Some of the questions actually made me laugh in context to this fic like; 'Does your character meet Legendary Pokémon?'
> 
> Well, considering that the Orre games had just about every Legendary from the first two generations except Mewtwo and Mew as Shadow Pokémon you needed to rescue, you can summon Celebi to purify your Shadow Pokémon for you (never mind the special disks you could use to actually get a Celebi and a Jirachi), and Shadow Lugia is the backbone of the second game's plot, and that's not counting anything I added that wasn't in those two games (I mentioned I threw in some TCG stuff along with some Pokkén Tournament, yes?).
> 
> 'Is your character loved by their Pokémon for being a caring trainer?', 'Does your character obtain one or more Pokémon by rescuing it from an abusive trainer, injury, or abandonment?', 'Is one of the main differences between your character and the villains of your story the detail that the villains act in immoral ways, such as abusing Pokémon, kidnapping children, or murdering people?'
> 
> The first Pokémon game I ever played (Silver) was very clear on that being a good caring trainer was very important. I mean, like during the whole opening errand, everyone is talking about how Pokémon are your partners and deserve to be treated with kindness and care. Being kind and gentle with abused Pokémon is the whole point of this story and the Orre games. You are literally rescuing them from being used as weapons and 'opening' their hearts through love and care. And 'befriending' your Pokémon is a valid strategy in the anime – which is where I took the whole 'human level intelligence' thing from, so I don't know how that's unreasonable. The fact that Delaine is a caring trainer that is good with Pokémon (not just her own either) and is actively concerned about their health and wellbeing in the first place is the whole reason why she would get involved in the plot to begin with.
> 
> Anyway, I've got a character guide to this series, complete with art and potential spoilers for future jumps – an unavoidable hazard with stories being published in different chunks – that's on the AO3 version of the series. Same username, same titles. It's only the MC for this fic + the Doctor Who fic for now (though with spoilers for a couple future jumps) along with another guy, but I'll update things as they're firmed up for other characters.
> 
> When I use the word 'taiga', I mean to reference the root Yakut word 'tayga' meaning 'untraversable forest' rather than the Russian 'cold as shit / arboreal forest'. You'll get an idea of why I named it that later (or, if you read to original version of the fic, you've already guessed).
> 
> As to Eagun dumping Delaine as a student… I'm trying not to make it a 'good guy/bad guy' situation. While I'm intending him to come across as a very capable forester, archeologist, and Aura guardian, those things don't automatically make for a good teacher.
> 
> Chances are that Eagun was probably self-taught, either by experience or by researching ancient Aura users, and doesn't actually have much in the way of practical teaching techniques… beyond the forestry or the archeology which are a bit more practical and explainable than 'see without seeing', 'feel the energy of the world around you', and 'push the energy that you feel running through your body into your fist at just the right time in just the right way to break this rock into pieces'.
> 
> On the other side of the equation, Delaine is really bad at people in general (both in the awkward and easily irritated by them senses), has a very explosive temper when her buttons are pushed – of which we've established animal/Pokémon abuse and doing injury to someone within her in-group –, very little in the way of restraint when those buttons are pushed. Combine that with the fact that she was basically in the 'hell' phase of puberty at the time… yeah.
> 
> They're both capable of acknowledging the other's good points and skills, but anything beyond a professional relationship would be fairly awkward for both of them because they're just too different to really agree on many things outside of their beliefs concerning Pokémon and wilderness conservation.
> 
> Anyway, hopefully I'll have another chapter done and uploaded before too long. Reviews and feedback are appreciated!


	9. Helping Hand

I'd woken up to the crawling sense that someone had done something that I needed to clean up, only to find that feeling get sideswiped by something else. A white room with white walls, a white ceiling, and a white floor greeted my eyes as they cracked open, and for a moment, I was six years old and terrified.

After a brief moment of freak out – where am I? Who am I? Where did this dog come from? –, the rest of my brain _finally_ booted up.

Right. Orre, Pokémon lab, different universe, still me, maybe a different me, and the Houndour I'd curled up around had come from a hole in the ground.

"What time is it?" I asked the Fire-type.

The Houndour gave me a look. "Rowlnnn."

"I just woke up, it takes me a little bit to remember all the junk that's going on."

The look turned from 'why do you think I have a watch?' to 'how are you an adult?' with only the slightest change of expression.

Great, even the devil dog is judging me. I'd be madder if I wasn't judging myself.

I sighed as I straightened my back, popping the vertebrae back into place as I went through the process of clearing the cobwebs. Scratching behind the closest Pokémon's ears helped a little and, from the lack of snarling, the Houndour wasn't complaining about it either.

I'd make a joke about being the Pokémon Whisperer, but honestly, I would have probably messed it up somewhere between thinking and the speaking. I'd never been good at that part.

"You wanna stay in here or come out with me?" I asked before more information clicked into place. "Oh right. You don't like people that much right now, do you? That's why you're in here. That way everyone has the space they need."

It glanced to the side. "Rn."

"Someday, you might have the appropriate amount of surliness for your size, but that day is not today." I started to switch from the slow deliberate scratches to a rougher ruffle of fur, but the Houndour stiffened right as my tempo started to shift and I pulled my hand back. "I'll be back to hang out with you later, okay? Bring some food, maybe take you out for a walk. This isn't exactly a happy room."

The Pokémon's expression screamed 'no shit, Sherlock' without having an understanding of human literature to go behind it.

I shrugged before rising up to my feet, stretching out as I went. The fact that an all-over low level pain wasn't my baseline reality anymore was amazing, even three days after the fact. No joints were popping in and out of place, no nerves setting themselves on fire just because they could, no muscles that felt like they were bound up tighter than the average guitar string, and there was no burning in the gaps in my spinal column or hands. Sure, I still had a headache, but that was mostly a 'there's too much going on' headache rather than any purely structural damage.

Christ, no wonder some people were so peppy all the goddamn time, if they felt this good every day.

I stepped out of the room, the pneumatic hiss of the door closing behind me almost lost in the dull hum of activity around the lab. The buzz of florescent lights at work, mostly, though there were other small noises that ran the gamut of possibilities from electronics to Pokémon.

Speaking of which…

A Trapinch was making a slow trek across the floor, pausing long enough to glance at me. "Crrnnch."

"Good morning to you too, cutie bug."

For a bug with a mouth like a hacksaw, its smile was very adorable. "Rnncha!" it chirped happily before it went back to its travels. If it wasn't interrupted, it might make the front door in an hour or so. If it ever evolved, the same trip would become a journey of seconds. Just another example of the wonders of Pokémon.

As my brain went through its regular wake-up process, I tried to figure out what time it was.

The sun had been up for a while, though I wouldn't say it was any later than 10 o'clock from the angle of the yellow light spilling across the floor. The fact that the overhead lights were on at all… well, maybe power conservation wasn't such a big deal. After all, between the wind farm in town, the solar panels most people had installed in their roofs, and the odd help from an Electric-type, it wasn't like electricity had much of a price tag attached.

Still, it annoyed the part of me that had grown up in a world where _everything_ had a price. It was careless, a financially and environmentally irresponsible expenditure of precious resource. If it didn't _needed_ to be on, it shouldn't be.

Pushing back that buzz of discontentment, I continued my walk to the main lab and found everyone gathered around a table. And on that table, amid all the papers and electronic detritus, sat the Snag Machine.

It was different than I remembered it being. It was less clunky, for one, and infinitely more obviously 'prototype' in its appearance, but there was obviously enough of a physical resemblance to what I remembered from the slightly blocky Gamecube graphics that my brain had made the connection instantly.

"Now, I know what they say about 'once being an accident and twice being a coincidence'," Professor Acacia was saying. "But with this I'm inclined to jump right to enemy action at the second mark because if this 'Cipher' is actively distributing these Shadow Pokémon, it's only a matter of time before we find number three."

This is it. This is where the 'tutorial' ends and the real shit starts. This is where I cross the Rubicon. I forced a smile as I stepped into the room, my boots making muffled thumps against the linoleum. "Starting the party without me? For shame."

"Maybe you should try for a human sleep pattern," the professor shot back with more energy than his sleep deprived appearance implied. Had he even tried to go to bed last night? I doubted it.

"We were just discussing what to do about this Shadow Pokémon situation," Eagun said, looking miles better though I knew from experience that the Aura master never gave away things like exhaustion until it was enough to send a lesser man sprawling to the ground.

"I didn't know we had much choice in it."

"We don't," Wes replied. His arms were folded over each other and it was more than obvious that he didn't want to be here.

"Well, if you don't want to do it, far be it from me to drag you into it," I informed him. "I've got no problem running solo on this if you'd rather –"

"I'm not chickening out!" the teen yelled, slamming his hands down on the table hard enough to rattle the plexiglas. "I just happen to be the one person here who has a pretty good idea of what we're up against! Forget Team Snagem; Cipher's got money, resources, and connections I couldn't begin to list. They've got enough pull to hire hundreds and we've got a sum total of… what? Six people? Yeah, six people and maybe twelve to sixteen Pokémon between them."

"And a Snag Machine," I added, nodding towards the black and red arm cover on the table.

Wes grit his teeth. "And a Snag Machine, though I have no _fucking_ idea how you know what it is just by looking at it. Yeah, that levels the table a little bit, at least until the cops get on our asses about stealing Pokémon."

"I believe that I can help in that regard," Eagun said. Everyone turned to look at him and he reached up to flick a few stray strands of long silvery hair behind his ear. "With the size of the regions police force being… well, what it is, Sherles is flexible enough to take whatever help he can get. My recommendation will only help in swaying his decision. So long as you inform him of our concerns and what information we have currently, he would be more than willing to give us the necessary leeway… though any further aid beyond keeping his ear to the ground with regards to Cipher would be unlikely."

"There's also the problem of getting the trainers to surrender the Pokémon," Acacia added. "You've been lucky, finding the released Houndour and the last trainer you encountered being… less than concerned about retaining ownership of his Furret, but actively moving into illegal activity is not something that will help us."

Wes shifted slightly uncomfortably at that and I found myself wondering how deep his criminal past went. Did he have a record or just some dread feeling settling over his shoulder that told him that getting into this mess was just _begging_ his old Team to come hunt him down?

"So, it sounds like we have like… seventy to eighty percent of a plan." Which is about thirty percent more than I usually come up with on my own, though I wouldn't be telling anyone that. My own primary concern was on how the _hell_ to give therapy to the Legendaries I knew the higher-ups had on hand. "So that just leaves the question of who will bell the cat."

"What?"

"Who's gets to be the idiot to go do the dangerous shit," I repeated, looking around the table. The professor and Eagun were right out, but that still left three other people. "Besides me. Do I have any backup idiots? Anyone? _Any_ takers?"

"Fine!" Wes said with a disgusted tone that made it vague if his acceptance was because of my chatter or not. "Might as well go with you, seeing as you don't know jack about the Snag Machine."

"I'm smarter than I look; I could probably figure it out," I replied, picking up the hand part of the machine in question. Little bit of fiddling, some random button pushing… actually, it was probably better that Wes handle it for now. Then I could figure out the controls via observation in the event that something went to hell.

Eagun pushed himself away from the table, the action serving as a signal for his apprentice to follow. "Unfortunately, I won't be able to stay here to assist you. I've been away from Agate Village long enough as it is and I should be taking Rui back –"

"I'm staying to help."

That turned the Aura guardian's head. "What?"

Rui's stance shifted into something that almost looked combat worthy. Some trick for a fourteen year old girl who was wearing pink Uggs and a jean jacket with fluffy wool lining. "I can't just sit here and pretend this isn't happening, Grandpa. I've seen what's been done to these Pokémon," she said. "And I've proven that I'm strong enough to take a Pokémon journey on my own. Going with Delaine and Wes is safer than that, bad guys or not."

I wasn't going to point out how many things were wrong with that sentence. Even I didn't know exactly what had been done to the Pokémon to make them go Shadow, but I had a pretty good idea of the gulf in relative safety between Rui's trip through Unova and the mess we were about to throw ourselves into.

So what I had left was a compromise.

"How about after we take that look around Pyrite, we stop by Agate Village and give you an update, Eagun?" I offered, drawing everyone's attention back to me again. Ignoring the immediate spike in my discomfort, I continued. "That way, if it turns out that being out on the front line is too extreme for Rui, she can switch to helping from the sidelines."

"You're not getting rid of me–"

"It's not getting rid of you! It's just… giving you an out if things end up being too dangerous, alright?" I wasn't really into the idea of dragging her into this in the first place, but this was the best I could do to strike a balance between keeping her safe and not trampling over her feelings.

Obviously, it wasn't that good a balance, especially where Rui was concerned. "You're treating me like a child!"

You _are_ a child. When I was fourteen, the right series of stresses shoved into a short period of time could leave me crying in a heap for half a day, and that was without having to take on the task of smashing a criminal syndicate backed up by the power of preternatural pocket monsters.

Before I could make good on my impulse to just leave and let someone else resolve the situation, Wes of all people jumped in. "Look. I know what this Team is like," he said. "There is a good chance that they will try to kill anyone they suspect of being involved in this, and your… whatever the hell she is, doesn't want to drag you into it."  
"You think I don't know that? They kidnapped me right off the street! If not for you and Delaine, I probably would have been dead by now," Rui snapped. "As much as you seem to think so, I'm not _stupid_."

Running seemed like a really good idea just about now, seeing as my ideal solution of 'leave this reality' wasn't a viable escape option and my impulse to punch her out for using _that_ word with _that_ emphasis was inherently wrong. Unfortunately, 'good idea' didn't exactly mean 'actual useable solution to this problem' in most situations.

That didn't stop me from doing it anyway.

"Whatever," I finally ground out, the edges of the words roughed up from shoving them past the lump in my throat. No crying, no flipping out, no nothing. "Just sayin' the door's open if you change your mind. Welcome to the party, yadda yadda yadda, try not to get killed." As I walked to the door, I gave a small pause to look back at everyone. "I'm going to home to grab some stuff and tell my mom about this whole thing. Don't do anything stupid without me."

As soon as I was out of eyeshot and heading back towards town – without my bike, which I couldn't go back for just yet because that would ruin my exit and offer someone the chance to drag me back in –, I tried and failed to let the tension out of my body.

I'd never been good with people. That was a fact universal, seeing as it had carried over to this life despite having a parent who actually saw and treated me as a human being. Social situations stressed me out, which is probably why I preferred animals. At least the nuances there followed certain themes and the social rules were a lot more obvious, even if I didn't necessarily speak the same language.

People though. I'd never quite spoken the same language as them, either thanks to my brain design or – at least in the context of my first life – my entire experience with them being immediate family members, people at school, or anyone who just happened to be anywhere my dad decided to drag me.

It was a short list, and I couldn't say that much of it proved a positive experience, seeing as the fact that I was checking off half the boxes on abuse at home and at school I was the poor, scarred, and easily riled kid which in turn meant that I was on the short list of acceptable targets the day I walked into kindergarten, a status that lasted until I graduated high school.

End result; a person with a skewed sense of proportion, unusual and occasional irrational reactions to seemingly random shit, and a set of emotions that were still healing from the repeated metaphorical flayings they received over the years.

The anger issues were easy enough to guess, seeing as me getting pissed at something or other was a weekly – daily, if life was taking a particularly shitty bent – occurrence, but there were other things. Crying at the drop of a hat, a deeply seated self-loathing, and a taste for righteous retribution were just the most obvious ones I could name. My first response to frustrations being to use my fists or some other form of violence and my instinctual distrust of authority figures were a bit harder to pick out, if only because I made an effort to pull back on them whenever they showed up.

I sighed, kicking a rock down the road. Any good mood that had come with waking up and interacting with Pokémon was long gone, as well as the anger that had followed it, leaving behind only tiredness.

"Yaay, depression."

One of my Pokéballs twitched, reminding me that, while they might be out of sight, my Pokémon still had an awareness of what I was doing.

I released Leven, the Rowlet flapping a little in surprise before it descended to the ground, shaking its round body until its feathers settled back into place.

"Whiiir?" it asked with a curious head tilt.

"I'm fine," I replied. "Just… tired."

"Chuff."

I offered up a weak smile. My starter was a good Pokémon, one that had stayed by my side for years. So what if it had never evolved? It was the closest thing I had to a best friend, despite the language barrier, and I was more likely to start a hand-to-hand brawl than a Pokémon battle, so what difference did it really make in the end?

Of course, the Rowlet didn't know what had happened to me. I'd hidden all signs of unfamiliarity and settled into a cover of convenience. But was it really fair to let Leven's loyalty be abused like that? Could I be just as good as a trainer as the me native to those world was, even while dragging all my emotional baggage along behind me?

If Leven was a human, I probably couldn't have told it. As much as I didn't understand my own kind, I'd know the look of despair too intimately not to feel it myself.

But… "I suppose I should catch you up on my situation," I said, dragging my hand back through my hair before gesturing for the Rowlet to hop up on my shoulder. Then, once the Flying-type was secure, I started walking again, spilling my story along the way.

* * *

Delora hadn't really ever expected this day to come. The fact that no-one but those who could afford to travel took Pokémon journeys was one of the few reliable things about Orre and she'd come to rely on it more than she should have. Was it wrong to depend on her daughter for human affection? Probably, but Delaine was safe and reliable in ways that most of her past relationships weren't. After all, while men could come and go and friends might move away, children didn't wander far.

Except there was an additional clause to the last statement that she'd forgotten until Delaine walked in through the front door, looking a decade older and infinitely more tired than she had when she last left. Not in that her daughter was physical older; no, there was no difference there, no sudden growth spurt or presence of wrinkles. But the eyes. The eyes were tired, almost what she would call world-weary.

Children didn't wander far. But eventually they stopped being children and after then, all bets were off.

"I'm not staying for long," Delaine said without preamble or prompting as she passed Delora and made for the stairs.

"What–?"

Delora followed her daughter up the stairs. Delaine was digging through the various piles of mess in her room, collecting a selection of objects that was all too telling of what she was planning on doing next. Pokéballs, potions, ethers, and other Pokémon care items joined her laptop and other assorted items in her bag as she threw everything else to the side to make a new pile.

She was reminded of an old habit of her daughter's from when she first started easing into her messy habits and, though she couldn't hear her saying anything now, she could hear a smaller child chanting 'Dig Dug, Dig Dug' as she made her way through the piles of discarded clothing and books in quest for one specific item.

"And where are you going?"

Her daughter didn't stop, instead moving to another part of the room in her search for supplies, no cute chant accompanying her along the way. "Someone's abusing Pokémon," she finally explained. "A whole Team of someones."

"Snagem?"  
"Bigger than them. More dangerous too."  
"Why can't someone else handle it then?"

Delaine stopped and turned around slowly to look her mother in the eye. "Because the other option is two fourteen year old kids trying to do it alone and you know I can't do that."

What– oh. "Rui's mixed up in this?" Delora asked.

Delaine grimaced. There had apparently been some argument about that earlier, one that her daughter had lost. "Yeah, and she won't un-mix herself from it either. And I'm not letting her rush into danger with only a fourteen year old boy as backup."

No. Fourteen year olds, while occasionally capable enough on their own, still lacked the experience that age gave. Delaine wasn't much older, but she was still ahead of them by a not inconsiderable margin and she did have a bit of training to back experience up.

"How bad is it?"

"Very. Professor Acacia could give you a better sense of the scale, but I can tell you that it's shitty enough that our first stop is informing Chief Sherles down in Pyrite Town," Delaine replied as she stood up and straightened the strap of her bag and checked how well her Pokégear was attached to its side. "Anyway, I left my motorcycle at the Lab, so I gotta get going."

Before her daughter could get to her door, Delora lunged and wrapped her arms around her, ignoring the way the girl stiffened in response. "Stay safe."

* * *

Stay safe.

What an odd thing to be bothered by, yet here I was, bothered. I had almost forgotten to grab some Pokéblocks from the kitchen to take to the Houndour I'd been working with, that's how badly my mother was able to shake me with all of two words.

Probably because they weren't ones I was used to hearing in my last life. Most of what I got was 'see you later', 'tomorrow then?', or even the semi-formal 'goodbye'. Even my friends weren't too invested in the abstract of my safety, mostly because I was the unkillable one, who could tank everything from bullets to stomach flu.

Of course, considering that only one of them really stuck around after high school, I probably shouldn't have been disappointed in the first place.

Leven hooted into my ear, breaking me out of my oncoming depressive down spiral.

I gave the Owl Pokémon a sidelong glance. "How come you're the reasonable one in this relationship?"

"Whr."

I laughed, the sudden movement of my head sending Barbara clawing for a better grip on my head. While the exact meaning of 'Whr' might have eluded me, my Aura sense could give me the approximate shape of it and how the Rowlet felt about what it had said, which in this case was 'witty retort that the bird was very smug about'.

After that, the laughter was simply infectious.

"I see you're in a better mood," Eagun said. He was walking down the dirt path to town with Sorcha, the apprentice walking their bike rather than riding it. The fact that I'd failed to notice either of them until they were literally ten feet away from me either spoke to my previous funk or the dulling of my skills.

"I'm guessing you couldn't talk Rui out of it," I said, noticing the lack of a redhead in their group.

"She's stubborn. Common enough inheritance in our family," he replied with a shrug. Despite his outer casualness, there was a tension in his bearing that betrayed his real feelings on the subject. "I do feel better knowing that you'll be looking after her."

Huh. Weird. "Well, she's pretty much family," I said, looking off into the trees to avoid any chance of eye contact. "Don't think I could live with myself if something happened to her that I could have prevented."

Eagun looked at me for a moment, almost like that statement surprised him, before shaking his head. "Anyway, once your investigation turns something up, I expect you to come to Agate Village posthaste. You remember where I live."

Hard to forget a house that was just as much tree as it was human construct. I gave him a basic wave that was little better than me raising my hand above my shoulder. "Drive safe."

The Aura master nodded and that was the end of the conversation. Ten minutes after that, I 'watched' their Aura signatures make a short stop in Chrysoprase before properly departing five minutes later. Eagun had probably felt a resupply was in order. He was careful like that.

Me? I was some schizophrenic blend of 'careful' and 'reckless'. Anxiety did that, pushing you to procrastinate and over prepare until the part of you who had decided on doing the thing in the first place screamed 'JUST FUCKING DO IT ALREADY' and compelled you to take a flying leap out the window without benefit of rappelling cord or parachute.

I mean, I hadn't done that, but given the level of situation I was about to get myself into, I wouldn't be surprised if one or more kinds of defenestration were in my future.

Finally reaching Acacia's lab, I opened the door and – without any real attention paid to the people in the front room – went back to the Houndour's containment room.

The Dark-type's head shot up as I opened the door, its Aura flaring in surprise as it recognized me.

"What? I said I'd come back and when I make a promise, I do my best to keep it," I said, sitting down on the floor. I gestured to the Pokémon clinging to my head and shoulders. "This is Leven, this is Barbara."

The Noibat chittered at the Houndour, prompting the canid Pokémon to make a literal bitch face.

"Alright, back in the ball," I decided before recalling Barbara, though Leven stayed out. I scratched the back of my head. "Anyway, I thought that you could use a little company besides me – which I will now acknowledge as being more than a little presumptuous as I do not know your mind – though I hope that the food I brought will make up a little for the mistake."

With that, I pulled some Pokéblocks and kibble out of my bag, laying out a selection. "Now, seeing as I'm not familiar with your preferences, I grabbed a selection of different fla–"

The pile of spicy Pokéblocks abruptly disappeared beneath a small black and white body.

"-vors," I finished as the Houndour destroyed that section to the exclusion of all else. It licked its chops before looking over to me with an expectant expression.

"That was all the spicy ones I had, bud."

The Houndour brought out its best puppy dog eyes.

"I don't have any more of that kind," I explained again as I started putting the rest away.

A plaintive whine joined the display.

"I cannot pull Pokéblocks out of the aether, my dude."

The Houndour pulled out the big guns to paw at my leg, nudging my side with its nose while not once letting the whine or puppy dog eyes drop.

"I would if I could, but my superpowers are limited to sensing and punching."

The whine climbed to a pitiable wail, which brought Acacia to the room.

"Problems?" he asked.

"Someone ate all the treats they liked and are now Very Upset about the fact," I replied as the Houndour kept sobbing into my side. As soon as I said that, it gathered itself… exclusively for the purpose of nipping me with its teeth. "Hey, watch the pointy," I warned the Pokémon. "Making a person bleed makes them disinclined to bring you treats, you know."

The whine returned, but with a distinctly sarcastic edge. I barely needed Aura to know that it was calling _me_ a whiner.

"Hey, _you're_ the one who's crying over eating all the goodies," I pointed out before turning my attention back to Professor Acacia. "Anyway, was there something you needed me to do? Besides the whole evil Team smashing thing."

Acacia snorted before throwing something at me. I grabbed it and found a Pokéball in my hand. "Well, considering how well you're doing with that Pokémon," he explained in response to my raised eyebrow. "I figure you might as well take it with you. Keep up what progress you've made on the road."

I looked down at the Houndour and then back up at the Professor. "You sure that's a good idea?"

As if to highlight the point, the Houndour bit me again. Not hard enough to draw blood – not that it could, if I cared to put my Aura training to use – but enough to reinforce the fact that we weren't exactly besties.

Not that I was surprised, what with what I knew about its background and my own track record with the dogs in my past life. Only two or three that I'd ever been around with any regularity had been trained not to attack people and only three of the remaining category weren't trained at all.

"Yeah, I do. I've seen worse rapports and I'd rather not see the little one backslide," the Professor said, folding his arms as he leaned against the doorframe. "So, are you going to do it or what?"

I sighed before looking down at the Houndour again. It wasn't exactly a small creature, coming in at a hair over two feet high and a few scant inches from being level with the middle of my thigh. That was odd, considering I'd always pictured them as being smaller. Probably because they'd always registered in my head as 'puppies'.

This wasn't a puppy, unless it was the puppy that would eventually turn into the Hound of the Baskervilles. Still, I had to remember that this was an intelligent creature, one that had been treated poorly in the past to extents I probably didn't have the vocabulary to articulate.

"Well?" I asked the Houndour. "What do you think?"

The Pokémon looked taken aback by the option… or by the fact that I was offering it.

"It's your life," I explained, forcing down my immediate impulse to voice my incredulousness. "Should fall to you how you go through it. Of course, I expect us to work together if we're on the same team, but it's your choice whether or not you wish to join in the first place."

The Houndour considered my offer silently for a few minutes before turning away.

I shrugged before standing up. "Fair enough." Turning to face Professor Acacia, I handed the Pokéball back. "I'll check in again after Pyrite. For now, maybe you could try therapy with the pack, see if that'll help bring the little guy out of that shell."

The professor didn't look happy I'd given up so easily, but eventually he just shrugged. "Like you said, it was the Pokémon's choice whether or not it wanted to work with you. Anyway, make sure to make a comprehensive report so I have some actual data to work with when you come back."

I nodded as I moved into the hallway, sparing a glance back at the Houndour. "See you later then."

It gave me a look before jerking its head around to stare at the far wall of the isolation room. Well, it wasn't perfect, but it felt like progress, so I'd take it. After all, things would only get more complicated the more Shadow Pokémon we acquired and not just because we'd be getting attention from the wrong sort of people.

Wes and Rui were waiting outside, Rui having already commandeered the passenger car on Wes's monster of a motorcycle. Ah, so I was still on her shit list. Fair enough.

I tossed Wes the spare helmet I kept for her, surprising the teen with the action. "Make sure she wears it," I told him. "Ready to get this show on the road?"

"I was ready yesterday," Wes replied.

I nodded as I hopped onto my bike. Then let my mask of confidence drop with a sigh. Yes, I thought to myself as I slid a pair of Go-Goggles over my eyes and started my bike this adventure was going to be _fun._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh. Life tough, brain hurt, but I've got a copy of Ultra Sun coming my way, a code for a Celebi looming on the horizon right after that (my first Celebi yaay), a whole bunch of older Pokémon games (Colosseum and XD included) I can play through and then trade between to get so many Legendary (just need Emerald and a whole lot of patience to get that Shiny Rayquaza), and actual progress on my whole disability case thing is finally happening so the future is looking okay.
> 
> Anyway, thank you for your kind messages regarding my hiatus. Just a… lot of stuff was happening at once and having to open up a lot of past trauma – literally years of abuse from my father, step-mother, half-sister, and schoolmates – didn't help. Updates on this story will probably still be a little slow as I've mostly been getting muse for other projects – mostly related to Chains Adventurous, so that's good – and life has been busy, but hopefully I will start advancing on the story and going back to edit previous chapters for quality and continuity errors. I've been doing the same with Dimensions In Time, so I know it's a good idea.
> 
> A few sections of this chapter saw a couple do-overs (Delora's was initial present with a Dusk-type Lycanroc that I mean to work in – might happen in edits down the line – but then I was like 'eeeeh' and deleted it, only to bring it back, probably a little worse than before) and false starts, but I eventually squeezed it out.
> 
> I am planning on having the Houndour join, but I think that I should focus on the characters already in the main party (humans and Pokémon) before bringing another into the fray. This was decided because I realized that I'd been ignoring Leven almost entirely and not really doing anything with Barbara either.
> 
> I've come up with some more worldbuilding for Orre (probably will show up later and also in edits) which is something I'll continue to work on.
> 
> Anyway, that's all the updates I have right now, so I hope you enjoyed the chapter.


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